HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 


21  25iosrapi)ical  Outline 


BY 


HORACE  E.   SCUDDER 


CAMBRIDGE 

intro  at  ttje  Ktoersioe 

M  DCCC  XCVII 


Copyright,  1897, 
BY  HORACE  E.   SCUDDEE 


PREFACE 

WHEN  the  family  of  Mr.  Houghton  asked 
me  to  prepare  a  memorial  of  his  life  I  gladly 
consented,  for  it  was  a  grateful  task  to  recall 
his  vigorous  personality.  I  did  not  fully  per- 
ceive till  I  came  to  write  my  book  how  im- 
possible it  would  be  to  make  anything  like 
an  adequate  Life:  there  were  very  few  let- 
ters which  I  could  use,  for  almost  the  whole 
of  Mr.  Houghton's  correspondence  was  of  a 
business  sort,  and  it  was  difficult  to  detach 
him  from  his  business.  I  was  bent  on  pre- 
senting him  individually,  yet  some  of  his 
most  notable  achievements  were  accomplished 
through  and  with  the  hearty  cooperation  of 
his  associates.  I  am  sure  they  will  not  mis- 
understand the  concentration  of  my  attention 
on  him. 

I  was  compelled,  after  I  had  sketched  the 


262567 


vi  PREFACE 

beginning  o£  his  life  by  means  of  such  scanty 
documents  as  I  could  procure,  to  rely  largely 
upon  my  own  recollections  and  impressions. 
The  portrait  thus  is  drawn  from  my  own 
point  of  view.  It  is  no  more  than  an  out- 
line. If  conditions  had  been  more  favorable, 
not  only  would  I  gladly  have  filled  out  the 
sketch  with  a  more  detailed  treatment,  but  I 
would  have  tried  to  correct  my  own  view  by 
a  comparison  with  that  of  one  and  another  of 
Mr.  Houghton's  acquaintances  and  friends. 
In  truth  I  fear  I  have  strayed  somewhat  from 
the  task  set  me  of  preparing  a  memorial  vol- 
ume. I  can  only  plead  that  after  thirty  years' 
constant  intercourse  with  Mr.  Houghton,  his 
personality  was  too  vivid  for  me  to  treat  it 
with  the  studied  impartiality  of  a  historian. 


NOTE  ON  THE  PORTRAITS 

THE  frontispiece  is  from  a  photograph  taken  in  1893 
for  use  by  Mr.  Robert  Gordon  Hardie  when  painting 
the  portrait  presented  by  Mr.  Houghton  to  his  partners 
and  associates,  which  hangs  in  the  Counting  Room  of  the 
Riverside  Press. 

The  picture  facing  page  12  represents  Mr.  Houghton 
just  before  entering  college,  and  his  sister  Marilla,  after- 
wards Mrs.  Gallup,  who  was  two  years  his  junior. 

The  portrait  facing  page  56  gives  the  aspect  of  Mr. 
Houghton  at  the  time  when  he  went  into  business  with 
Mr.  Bolles. 

The  three-quarters  portrait  opposite  page  74  is  from 
a  photograph  taken  about  1860. 

The  figure  which  faces  page  82  is  from  a  photograph 
taken  in  Paris  when  Mr.  Houghton  was  there  in  1864. 

The  portrait  opposite  page  110  is  from  a  photograph 
taken  in  1878. 

In  the  Aldermanic  Chamber  at  the  City  Hall,  Cam- 
bridge, hangs  a  painting  by  Mr.  Hardie  which  was  pre- 
sented to  the  city  by  various  persons  engaged  in  the 
business  of  the  Press,  and  at  the  several  offices  of 
Houghton,  Mifflin  and  Company.  The  photogravure 
facing  page  132  is  from  this  painting,  and  Mr.  Hardie 
in  executing  the  portrait  had  before  him  a  photograph 
taken  by  Sarony  about  1884. 

The  latest  portrait  of  Mr.  Houghton  is  that  facing 
page  152,  and  is  from  a  photograph  taken  in  1895. 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  was  born  on  the 
30th  of  April,  1823,  in  Sutton,  a  hill  town  of 
Caledonia  County,  in  the  northeastern  corner 
of  Vermont.  His  mother,  who  was  forty-three 
years  old  at  the  time,  was  Marilla,  daughter 
of  Captain  James  Clay,  of  Putney,  Vermont, 
an  officer  in  the  Revolutionary  army.  His 
father,  six  years  his  wife's  senior,  was  Cap- 
tain William  Houghton,  a  native  of  Bolton, 
Massachusetts.  Bolton  had  been  set  off  from 
Lancaster,  and  Lancaster  had  been  the  home 
of  the  Houghton  family  since  John  Hough- 
ton,  of  Lancaster,  England,  came  to  America 
in  the  Abigail  in  1635.  Captain  William 
Houghton  was  somewhat  of  a  rover,  and  took 
his  growing  family  with  him  as  he  moved 
from  one  place  to  another  up  the  Connecticut 
valley  and  into  the  Vermont  hills,  and  even, 


2  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

when  his  children  had  begun  to  establish 
themselves,  into  the  southwest  part  of  New 
York  State. 

There  were  six  sons  and  six  daughters,  and 
a  period  of  nearly  twenty-one  years  separated 
Henry  Oscar,  who  was  the  youngest  but  one, 
from  his  sister  Stella,  who  was  the  oldest  in 
the  family.  Of  the  six  sons,  two  became 
clergymen,  one  died  in  his  early  manhood, 
two  were  merchants,  and  the  youngest  was 
the  printer  and  publisher.  He  had  one  sister 
younger  than  himself,  Marilla  Houghton,  who 
became  a  teacher,  married  Dr.  J.  C.  Gallup, 
and  established  the  large  girls'  school  in 
Clinton,  New  York,  now  known  as  Houghton 
Seminary.  Mr.  Houghton  outlived  all  his 
brothers  and  sisters,  but  during  their  lifetime 
his  relations  with  them  were  very  close.  He 
was,  at  one  time,  under  the  watch  and  ward 
of  his  brother  Daniel,  eight  years  his  senior ; 
his  brother  Albert  Gallatin  became  his  busi- 
ness partner  in  1866 ;  he  owed  much  to  his 
oldest  sister  and  her  husband,  David  Scott, 
and  the  long  period  when  he  and  his  younger 
sister  were  the  only  ones  left  made  the  connec- 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  3 

tion  between  them  one  of  special  tenderness. 
The  family  scattered  widely,  five  of  the  mem- 
bers going  to  Alabama ;  but  when  the  young- 
est son  was  born  no  one  was  yet  married,  and 
probably  all  were  gathered  in  the  home  at 
Sutton. 

Sutton  is  high  up  on  one  of  the  long  lines 
of  rolling  hills  which  run  north  and  south.  It 
looks  off  upon  Burke  Mountain  in  the  south- 
east and  the  Willoughby  Gap  about  six  miles 
to  the  northeast.  The  Gap  and  Lake  form 
strikingly  picturesque  points  in  the  landscape, 
but  otherwise  the  country  is  not  marked  by 
more  noticeable  features  than  the  hills  which 
one  climbs  only  to  find  other  hills  lying  be- 
yond. The  country  is  a  farming  and  graz- 
ing district,  and  has  changed  little  since  the 
Houghton  family  lived  there.  The  plain 
house  in  which  Mr.  Houghton  was  born  still 
stands  in  the  village,  and  there  are  persons 
living  who  remember  the  little  shock-headed 
boy,  with  hair  hanging  over  his  forehead, 
who  made  one  of  the  figures  in  the  household. 

Captain  Houghton  moved  to  Sutton  in 
1820.  It  was  one  of  the  resting-places  in  his 


4  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

roving  life.  He  was  a  tanner  by  trade,  but 
had  failed  in  business  in  Lyndon,  his  previous 
home,  and  seems  to  have  gained  his  livelihood 
in  Sutton  by  working  for  the  farmers  there. 
The  family  was  large  and  it  was  a  hard  strug- 
gle to  keep  the  wolf  from  the  door.  That 
the  worst  did  not  befall  them  was  due  largely 
to  the  energy  and  thrift  of  the  mother,  whom 
her  son  often  spoke  of  with  admiration  for 
her  force  of  character.  The  Houghtons  did 
not  strike  root  very  deeply  in  the  thin  soil 
of  Sutton,  and,  after  a  few  years,  once  more 
moved  on  to  Bradford.  In  one  of  his  ad- 
dresses before  the  Vermont  Association,  Mr. 
Houghton  gave  a  slight  reminiscence  of  this 
time  of  his  early  youth. 

"  When  I  was  a  very  small  boy,  not  over 
ten  years  old,"  he  said,  "my  family  emigrated 
from  the  northern  part  of  Vermont,  from  the 
little  town  of  Sutton,  a  famous  maple-sugar 
town,  to  the  town  of  Bradford,  on  the  Con- 
necticut River;  and  my  duty  on  that  jour- 
ney, besides  riding  on  the  furniture  wagon, 
was  to  help  drive  the  cows  which  we  had  to 
take  with  us.  One  Saturday  evening,  just  at 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  5 

dusk,  we  came  to  the  little  town  of  Ryegate, 
and  the  signs  of  thrift  and  industry,  as  shown 
by  the  green  fields,  attracted  my  father,  so 
that  he  stopped  at  what  was  then  a  Scotch 
village.  I  remember  that  I  was  frightened 
nearly  out  of  my  wits  by  the  landlady,  who, 
while  stirring  her  oatmeal  porridge,  com- 
plained volubly  because  we  did  not  go  on  to 
the  next  tavern.  So  fearful  and  depressed 
was  I  that  I  could  not  taste  of  that  wonderful 
dish,  which,  they  say,  is  '  the  food  of  horses 
in  England,  and  of  men  in  Scotland.'  But 
when  I  was  lighted  up  to  bed  by  the  land- 
lord's daughter,  as  she  handed  me  the  candle 
to  go  to  my  little  chamber,  she  put  her  soft 
hand  on  my  head,  —  and  I  have  felt  the  sym- 
pathetic touch  of  that  soft  hand  for  over  fifty 
years."  The  reminiscence  was  used  in  intro- 
ducing a  reference  to  Mr.  Whitelaw  Reid, 
whose  mother  was  a  native  of  Ryegate,  but  it 
was  indicative  of  a  nature  singularly  suscepti- 
ble to  little  kindnesses. 

At  Bradford  there  was  a  country  academy, 
and  here  the  boy  had  for  three  years  his 
schooling,  but  at  thirteen  began  to  earn  his 


6  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

living  by  binding  himself  as  apprentice  in  the 
office  of  the  Free  Press,  at  Burlington,  then 
owned  by  H.  B.  Stacy,  where  he  served  for 
six  years.  Mr.  Houghton  liked  in  a  quiet 
way  to  observe  anniversaries;  and  when  he 
was  in  Vermont  in  1894,  he  visited  the  Free 
Press  office  in  Burlington  on  the  27th  of 
October,  and  stood  by  the  window  where,  on 
that  same  day  fifty-eight  years  before,  he 
took  his  place  at  the  case  as  an  apprentice. 
Of  his  first  journey  from  his  home  into  the 
world,  where  he  was  to  make  his  way  at  first 
on  foot,  as  it  were,  he  wrote,  nearly  sixty 
years  after :  — 

"  On  October  26, 1836,  hours  before  dawn, 
I  started  in  the  mail-coach  from  Bradford, 
on  the  Connecticut  River,  for  Burlington,  on 
Lake  Champlain,  to  be  initiated  into  a  know- 
ledge of  printing,  an  occupation  which  I  have 
followed  chiefly  since  that  time  until  the  pres- 
ent, and  am  still  in  my  humble  way  engaged 
in  it.  On  the  way  over  the  hills  from  Brad- 
ford to  Montpelier,  a  heavy  snow-storm  was 
falling,  and  the  apple-trees  were  loaded  with 
frozen  apples.  At  high  noon  of  that  day  we 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  7 

halted  for  dinner  in  this  village  [Montpelier], 
then  as  now  the  capital  of  the  State.  I  re- 
member with  what  wonder  my  boyish  eyes 
looked  upon  the  State  House,  then  standing 
on  this  site,  with  its  tall  columns,  and  with 
what  admiration  they  rested  on  the  member 
from  my  native  town,  dressed  in  the  tradi- 
tional blue  coat  with  brass  buttons,  the  usual 
apparel  of  statesmen  of  that  day,  so  very  dif- 
ferent from  the  farmer's  frock  in  which  I  had 
been  accustomed  to  see  him  in  his  native  vil- 
lage. Many  hours  after  dark  we  arrived  in 
Burlington,  having  made  a  journey  of  eighty 
miles  during  the  day." 

It  was  while  he  was  in  the  printing-office 
that  he  had  an  encounter  which  he  liked  to 
relate  in  after  years  for  its  curious  connection 
with  a  large  interest  in  his  business  lif  e.  One 
day  a  pale,  slim  man  came  into  the  office,  and 
showed  the  young  compositor  a  printed  list  of 
words  which  he  carried  with  him.  "  My  lad," 
he  said,  "  when  you  use  these  words,  will  you 
please  spell  them  according  to  this  list  ?  "  — 
theater,  center,  and  the  like.  It  was  Noah 
Webster,  who  was  traveling  about  the  coun- 


8  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

try,  and,  with  the  shrewdness  which  sent  him 
to  the  censors  of  spelling,  was  visiting  the 
printing-offices,  and  persuading  the  composi- 
tors to  adopt  his  reforms.  Webster  had 
already  published  his  dictionary,  but  the 
young  printer  was  to  be  one  of  the  principal 
agents  in  making  the  book  in  its  ultimate 
form  the  great  handbook  of  the  American 
people. 

Captain  Houghton  and  his  family  had  mean- 
while made  another  move  to  Nunda  Valley, 
in  Livingston  County,  New  York ;  but  Daniel 
Houghton  was  a  student  in  the  University  of 
Vermont,  at  Burlington,  where  he  was  looking 
forward  to  the  life  of  a  clergyman.  He  kept 
a  brotherly  watch  over  the  young  apprentice, 
and  stood  to  him  very  much  in  loco  parentis. 
There  is  a  letter  by  him  to  his  mother,  written 
in  June,  1839,  which  carries  with  it  a  very 
distinct  air  of  authority.  His  father  was  at 
the  time  in  Bradford,  and  the  mother  and  son 
seemed  to  be  arranging  in  his  absence  what 
should  be  done  about  the  boy's  education. 

"Maria  mentioned,"  Daniel  Houghton 
writes,  "that  you  would  like  to  have  Oscar 


HENRY  OSCAK  HOUGHTON  9 

come  home  and  go  to  school  there  a  year. 
Did  I  know  that  you  had  a  good  school,  a 
preceptor  amply  competent  to  teach  the 
classics,  I  should  have  no  objections  to  his 
going.  I  wish  to  have  him  fit  for  college; 
he  might  possibly  do  it  in  one  year,  but  it 
probably  will  be  better  for  him  not  to  enter 
until  two  years  from  August.  I  intend  to 
have  him  go  to  school  steady  after  next  Au- 
gust, whether  he  goes  home  or  not.  The  only 
objection  to  his  going  home  would  be  that 
the  advantages  would  not  be  as  good  as  here, 
and  the  expense  of  the  journey.  Should  it 
be  desirable  to  have  him  at  home  a  year,  and 
should  the  school  be  suitable,  I  have  no  objec- 
tions to  have  him  go  home  in  the  fall.  Please 
inform  me  respecting  the  school,  —  whether 
the  teacher  is  a  graduate  and  of  what  college, 
etc." 

The  work  in  the  printing-office  confirmed 
the  young  apprentice  in  rudimentary  know- 
ledge, and  after  a  long  day  spent  in  manual 
labor  he  applied  himself  to  books  in  the  even- 
ing, but  in  the  fall  of  1839  it  was  decided 
that  he  should  go  home  to  Nunda  and  enter 


10  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

the  academy  there.  He  appears  to  have  spent 
at  least  two  years  there  and  at  Wyoming,  for 
another  migration  of  the  family  had  shifted 
the  scene  from  Nunda  to  Portage,  near  Wyo- 
ming. How  much  he  was  master  of  himself 
at  this  time  is  curiously  evident  in  a  bundle 
of  faded  boyish  compositions,  translations,  and 
exercises  in  a  debating  club.  Both  the  hand- 
writing and  the  spelling  bear  testimony  to  the 
influence  upon  him  of  his  work  at  type-setting, 
and,  though  the  literary  form  is  not  altogether 
smooth,  there  is  a  vigor  and  independence  in 
the  thought  which  indicates  a  good  degree  of 
maturity  and  self-reliance.  It  strikes  one  as 
felicitous  that  he  should  be  writing  with  deter- 
mination on  Decision  of  Character,  —  an  essay 
which  interested  him  so  much  that  he  pro- 
duced a  "  revised  edition  "  a  couple  of  months 
later ;  and  that  he  should  have  amused  him- 
self, in  a  composition  on  the  New  Year,  with 
the  following  calculation  :  — 

"  Perhaps  we  might  very  profitably,  as  we 
commence  the  new  year,  look  back  and  see 
how  we  have  spent  the  old  one.  Allowing 
seven  hours  for  sleep,  there  are  seventeen  hours 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  11 

in  each  day  to  be  improved  in  some  way  or 
other ;  and,  allowing  another  three  hours  for 
work  or  play  (as  the  case  may  be),  we  have 
fourteen  hours  left,  about  half  of  which  we 
generally  spend  in  school  ;  and  probably  there 
are  not  many  of  us,  if  any,  who  study  more  than 
four  hours  out  of  school,  which  leaves  three 
hours  in  each  day  unaccounted  for,  and,  not 
reckoning  Sundays,  we  have  313  days  in  a  year ; 
and,  losing  at  the  rate  of  three  hours  in  each 
day,  at  the  end  of  the  year  we  should  come 
out  minus  thirty-nine  days  and  three  hours, 
and  in  ten  years  something  over  a  whole  year ; 
and,  taking  into  consideration  the  maxim  that 
6  time  is  money,'  we  might  suppose  each  hour 
to  be  worth  a  sixpence,  which  would  amount 
in  one  year  to  $58.68f ,  and  in  ten  years  to 
$586.87£." 


II 


APPARENTLY,  the  year  before  entering  col- 
lege was  spent  again  at  the  case  in  Burlington, 
but  in  the  fall  of  1842,  when  he  was  nineteen 
years  old,  he  was  able  to  pass  an  examination 
and  enter  the  University  of  Vermont.  He 
used  to  say  that  he  had  three  York  shillings 
in  his  pocket  when  he  entered  college,  two  of 
which  he  used  for  getting  himself  in  order  in 
his  room,  leaving  twelve  and  a  half  cents  for 
further  expenses.  But  he  had  been  inured 
to  hardship,  he  had  perforce  acquired  the 
most  frugal  habits,  and  he  had  the  very  great 
advantage  of  familiarity  with  a  craft  which 
gave  him  considerable  support  as  he  worked 
his  way  through  college.  He  was,  however, 
chiefly  indebted  for  his  support  to  the  gen- 
erous aid  of  Mr.  David  Scott,  who  had  mar- 
ried his  sister  Stella,  and  was  engaged  in 
business  in  Alabama.  He  used  in  later  life 
to  illustrate  the  stringency  of  his  means  at 


•'».•   «J      o          e 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  13 

this  time  by  telling  how  he  received  a  letter 
on  which  the  postage  had  not  been  prepaid. 
Between  his  absolute  lack  of  the  needed 
twenty-five  cents  and  his  resentment  at  being 
forced  by  his  correspondent  to  pay,  he  was 
inclined  to  refuse  the  letter  ;  but  curiosity  and 
hope  conspired  to  defeat  his  pride,  and  he 
borrowed  the  money,  opened  the  letter,  and 
found  it  contained  money  from  his  brother- 
in-law,  or  at  any  rate  a  promise  of  aid.  The 
following  extracts  from  letters  written  by  Mr. 
Scott  to  his  young  brother-in-law  during  these 
years  will  indicate,  brief  as  they  are,  not  only 
the  ready  aid  which  he  gave,  but  the  generous 
spirit  and  the  friendly  counsel  accompanying 
the  aid:  — 

September  1,  1843. —  "A  letter  from 
Stella  after  she  arrived  at  Dana,  Massachu- 
setts, tells  me  that  you  are  straitened  for 
funds  to  progress  in  your  college  course.  If 
you  will  inform  me  what  amount  is  necessary 
to  carry  you  through,  I  will  endeavor  to  assist 
you.  In  a  few  months  exchanges  will  be 
down,  and  I  can  then  remit  you  the  necessary 
sums  from  time  to  time  to  defray  your  ex- 


14  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

penses,  which  you  can  refund  at  your  conven- 
ience. .  .  . 

"I  am  in  hopes  you  will  improve  your 
time,  and  when  you  get  through  college  come 
South  and  get  into  business  of  some  kind." 

April,  1844.  —  "I  enclose  twenty  dollars 
in  South  Carolina  money,  which  is  the  best  I 
can  find  at  present.  I  hope  it  will  relieve 
your  present  difficulties  as  long  as  it  will  last. 
I  shall  be  pleased  to  hear  from  you  fre- 
quently, how  you  are  getting  along,  and  it 
will  afford  me  pleasure  to  assist  you  from 
time  to  time  as  you  may  stand  in  need.  Do 
not  be  backward  in  letting  your  wants  be 
known." 

1845.  —  "I  enclose  $50;  let  me  know 
when  you  will  stand  in  need  of  more  funds. 

"Please  acknowledge  the  receipt  of  this 
amount. 

"It  will  be  necessary  for  you  to  study  book- 
keeping, so  as  to  understand  accounts.  If 
you  could  improve  the  appearance  of  your 
handwriting,  it  would  be  desirable." 

The  University  of  Vermont  at  that  time 
was  a  modest  institution,  with  the  Eev.  Dr. 


HENRY  OSCAK  HOUGHTON  15 

John  Wheeler  for  President,  and  a  Faculty 
of  half  a  dozen  professors,  of  whom  the  Rev. 
Joseph  Torrey,  Professor  of  Intellectual  and 
Moral  Philosophy,  was  perhaps  the  most  emi- 
nent. There  was  a  library  of  about  ten  thou- 
sand volumes,  and  the  body  of  students  did 
not  much  exceed  a  hundred  in  number.  But 
no  one  who  knows  the  spirit  of  our  New  Eng- 
land colleges  in  the  early  half  of  this  century 
will  be  disposed  to  measure  the  worth  of  the 
training  received  by  the  meagreness  of  equip- 
ment or  the  paucity  of  numbers.  The  Uni- 
versity of  Vermont,  like  other  New  England 
colleges,  took  its  impress  from  a  few  control- 
ling spirits,  and,  at  the  time  when  Mr. 
Houghton  was  in  Burlington,  the  Marsh 
family  was  a  prominent  factor  in  collegiate 
life,  and  James  Marsh  was  the  prophet  of 
Coleridge  in  America.  It  is  a  coincidence 
that  one  of  Mr.  Houghton's  contemporaries 
at  college,  a  young  instructor  then,  afterward 
the  well-known  Professor  W.  G.  T.  Shedd, 
became,  through  the  same  influence,  the 
American  editor  of  Coleridge's  writings,  and 
that  one  of  the  latest  enterprises  in  which 


16  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

Mr.  Houghton  took  an  active  interest  was  the 
publication  in  America  of  Coleridge's  Letters. 
He  was  unmistakably  affected  in  his  judg- 
ment by  the  strong  attraction  this  writer  had 
for  him  in  college  days.  There  was  a  philo- 
sophical and  theological  bent  given  to  the 
minds  of  students  at  that  time,  which  is  ap- 
parent in  the  system  of  education  followed  in 
the  University.  As  if  to  justify  such  a  name 
for  the  institution,  the  studies  were  divided 
into  four  departments,  under  the  names  of 
the  Department  of  English  Literature,  the 
Department  of  Languages,  the  Department  of 
Mathematics  and  Physics,  and  the  Department 
of  Political,  Moral,  and  Intellectual  Philoso- 
phy, which  comprised  recitations  and  lectures 
in  Political  Economy,  the  Principles  and  Forms 
of  Government,  Laws  of  Nature  and  Nations, 
Ethics,  Natural  Theology,  and  Evidences  of 
Revealed  Religion,  Logic,  and  Metaphysics. 
In  later  life  Mr.  Houghton  was  a  strong  ad- 
vocate of  the  country  college.  He  was  pre- 
judiced in  its  favor  no  doubt  by  the  fact  of 
his  own  history,  but  a  strong  ground  for  his 
confidence  lay  in  his  recognition  of  the  per- 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  17 

sonal  force  exerted  by  a  few  men  of  power 
upon  a  small  body  of  students,  and  especially 
of  the  gradual  convergence  of  prescribed 
courses  toward  an  ultimate  philosophical 
statement  of  the  doctrines  which  should  fur- 
nish the  young  student  with  a  rational  law 
of  living. 

The  records  of  the  University  library  give 
some  indication  of  the  character  of  the  read- 
ing in  which  Mr.  Houghton  engaged  inde- 
pendently of  his  regular  college  work.  It  is 
a  meagre  list  for  the  four  years,  not  more 
than  thirty  books  in  all ;  and  some  of  these 
were  clearly  direct  aids  to  prescribed  study. 
It  is  probable  that,  with  his  irregular  prepara- 
tion for  college  and  his  necessity  to  eke  out 
his  means  with  labor,  he  had  little  leisure  for 
many  excursions  in  literature ;  but  the  qual- 
ity of  his  reading  shows  the  man  who  throve 
on  a  strong  diet.  The  first  book  he  took 
out  in  his  Freshman  year  was  the  first  volume 
of  Winthrop's  History  of  New  England, 
following  it  shortly  with  a  two-volume  work 
by  Charles  Mills  on  the  History  of  the 
Crusades.  A  long  gap,  from  the  middle  of 


18  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

October  to  the  middle  of  March,  was  closed 
by  William  Godwin's  Enquirer,  and  before 
the  year  closed  he  had  taken  out  three  vol- 
umes of  Dr.  Johnson's  writings,  Tanner's 
Narrative  of  Adventures  among  the  Indi- 
ans, and  two  volumes  of  Leighton's  works. 
In  his  Sophomore  year  he  appears  to  have 
drawn  but  a  single  book,  a  volume  of  Shake- 
speare; in  his  Junior  year  his  reading  was 
mainly  in  ancient  and  English  history.  His 
Senior  year  shows  half  the  entire  list:  he  was 
making  his  way  in  Scotch  metaphysics,  but  he 
was  also  reading  Kent's  Commentaries,  Mil- 
ton's prose  works,  Butler's  Analogy,  Fenelon, 
and  Bacon's  works.  When  recalling  his  col- 
lege days,  he  was  wont  to  speak  of  Milton  in 
his  prose  writings  as  having  a  strong  influ- 
ence on  his  intellectual  life,  especially  with  re- 
gard to  the  theological  problems  which  he  was 
engaged  in  solving;  he  pondered  at  times  the 
expediency  of  issuing  a  library  edition  of  Mil- 
ton's prose ;  he  looked  forward  to  publishing 
Leighton  in  his  Library  of  Old  Divines,  and 
there  were  few  of  his  publications  in  which  he 
took  greater  pride  than  the  edition  of  Bacon's 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  19 

works  edited  by  James  Spedding,  reprinted 
by  him  at  the  outset  of  his  publishing  career, 
upon  terms  which  made  Mr.  Spedding  a  warm 
advocate  of  American  publishers'  modes  of 
business. 

With  the  package  of  school  compositions  is 
another  of  similar  essays  written  during  the 
college  course.  Some  of  them  help  to  explain 
the  choice  of  books  from  the  college  library, 
and  the  subjects  have  somewhat  the  air  of 
having  been  assigned  by  a  college  officer. 
"The  Idea  of  Liberty  among  the  Ancient 
Greeks/'  "The  Study  of  the  Classics,"  "Im- 
portance of  Mathematical  Studies,"  "Beauty 
of  Thought  makes  Beauty  of  Style,"  "  What 
is  Education,"  are  the  set  pieces  in  the  old- 
fashioned  display  of  collegiate  pyrotechnics. 
But  now  and  then  there  is  a  phrase,  a  turn  of 
thought,  a  whole  paper  it  may  be,  which  has 
a  personal  interest  as  showing  how  the  young 
student  thought  and  felt,  or  what  was  engag- 
ing his  mind.  The  presidential  election  which 
occurred  in  his  Junior  year  was  that  in  which 
Clay  played  the  losing  game  against  Polk. 
The  tariff  of  1842  had  become  a  party  watch- 


20  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

word,  and  the  annexation  of  Texas  was  a  burn- 
ing question.  Like  many  other  ardent  young 
men  of  his  day,  Mr.  Houghton  was  an  enthusi- 
astic follower  of  Clay,  and  he  was  old  enough 
to  have  shared  in  the  slogan  of  "  Tippecanoe 
and  Tyler  too,"  and  to  have  shared  likewise 
in  the  disappointment  over  Tyler's  defection. 
In  one  of  his  college  essays  he  defines  his 
political  position.  "  One  of  the  parties,"  he 
says,  "  as  it  seems  to  me,  has  fixed  its  stand 
upon  principles,  while  the  other  has  broken 
away,  in  a  measure,  from  all  principle,  and 
seeks  to  build  it  all  up  by  flattering  the 
caprices  of  the  multitude.  The  one  advocates 
a  sound  national  currency,  protection  to  home 
industry,  and  an  equitable  distribution  of  the 
sales  of  the  public  lands ;  while  the  other  sets 
forth  no  principles  definitely,  but  promises  to 
do  everything  well,  if  the  people  will  only  let 
them  have  the  power.  During  the  adminis- 
tration of  the  government  for  five  or  six  years 
previous  to  1840  [when  the  Whigs  came  into 
power  under  Harrison],  the  country  was  com- 
pelled to  undergo  a  series  of  changes,  experi- 
ments, and  expedients,  when  the  whole  nation 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  21 

arose  in  its  might  and  shook  off  its  thralldom. 
But,  seeing  its  anticipations  all  blasted,  it  sank 
back  into  lethargy.  But  now,  hope  having 
dawned  upon  it  once  more,  the  whole  country 
is  rising  at  the  '  blast  of  the  bugle '  which  is 
being  reechoed  from  Maine  to  Georgia,  and 
from  Boston  harbor  to  the  Mississippi." 

He  devoted  one  of  his  compositions  to  an 
inquiry  into  the  policy  of  annexing  Texas. 
His  argument  against  annexation  was  based 
on  the  moral  weakness  which  overtook  nations 
when  they  turned  their  attention  to  the  ex- 
tension of  territory,  rather  than  to  the  devel- 
opment of  internal  resources.  Such  lust  of 
power,  he  maintains,  leads  to  party  strife  and 
distraction  within  the  state  itself;  and,  after 
citing  Greece,  Rome,  and  England,  he  sud- 
denly turns  for  an  instance  of  comparison 
to  Delaware  and  New  York,  "  the  former  of 
which  is  one  of  the  smallest  States  in  the 
Union,  is  out  of  debt,  and  seems  to  be  thriv- 
ing, from  the  fact  that  she  is  not  torn  by 
sectional  interests.  The  latter  is  one  of  the 
largest,  and  possesses,  perhaps,  a  greater  va- 
riety of  resources  than  any  other  State  in 


22  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

the  Union.  But  at  one  time  she  is  embark- 
ing largely  in  internal  improvements ;  at  an- 
other she  is  stopping  her  public  works,  and 
allowing  them  to  go  to  ruin  when  well-nigh 
completed.  Now  she  is  borrowing  money 
to  defray  the  expenses  of  government,  now 
levying  a  direct  tax  to  pay  her  debts,  just  as 
sectional  interests  or  parties  predominate. 

"  The  interests  of  every  part  of  the  Union  at 
the  present  time  seem  to  be  at  war  with  each 
other,  but  it  is  so  equally  balanced  that  it  is 
confidently  hoped  that  there  will  always  be  a 
sufficient  number  of  the  wise  and  honorable 
in  our  national  councils  to  prevent  one  por- 
tion of  the  Union  triumphing  over  another. 
But  add  the  foreign  territory  of  Texas  to  our 
Union,  and  the  worst  results  are  to  be  feared 
from  the  clashing  of  sectional  interests, — 
nothing  less  than  anarchy  and  disunion,  and 
when  that  day  arrives  it  will  be  truly  said 
that  '  our  glory  has  departed.'  " 

The  turn  of  the  argument  is  a  characteris- 
tic one,  for  Mr.  Houghton  often  showed  in 
discussion  a  curious  faculty  for  seizing  upon 
some  illustration  whose  pertinency  was  not 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  23 

immediately  apparent,  but  which,  by  some 
involution  of  his  mind,  had  an  effectiveness 
for  him,  and  served  by  its  picturesqueness  or 
other  striking  quality  to  drive  home  the  point 
he  was  making.  His  Commencement  part  was 
upon  "  The  Necessity  and  True  Method  of  a 
System  of  State  Education."  It  is  interesting 
to  notice,  that  though  he  drew  from  the  col- 
lege library  Grimke  on  Education  and  an  Ab- 
stract of  Massachusetts  School  Reports  for 
the  years  1838-1840,  his  oration  began  with  a 
quotation  from  Bacon,  took  in  Milton  by  the 
way,  and  showed  the  influence  of  Coleridge  in 
the  closing  paragraph. 

"  Since  the  state  is  admitted  to  have  a  moral 
being,  with  moral  attributes  and  a  moral  char- 
acter, the  system  of  education  which  it  adopts 
should  be  nothing  else  but  a  means  of  self- 
education  ;  and  this  must  be  limited  and  di- 
rected, as  has  been  intimated,  by  the  wants 
which  it  feels.  If,  then,  it  would  have  a  con- 
tinued and  healthful  growth,  it  will  strive  to 
know  its  own  wants,  and  will  use,  as  far  as 
possible,  the  means  to  satisfy  them.  Its  phy- 
sical wants  every  nation  feels  to  a  greater  or 


24  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

less  extent ;  but  the  higher  wants  which  be- 
long to  the  intellectual  and  moral  nature  are 
not  so  soon  awakened,  and  for  that  very  rea- 
son, when  they  begin  to  be  felt,  their  claims 
assume  a  paramount  importance.  The  high- 
est energies  of  the  state  should  be  directed 
to  their  satisfaction;  since,  by  seeking  the 
highest  moral  and  intellectual  culture  of  all 
its  members,  it  will  inevitably  seek  its  own, 
so  that  in  the  state  and  the  individual  will 
be  realized  the  vision  of  the  prophet,  '  whose 
appearance  and  work  was,  as  it  were,  a  wheel 
in  the  middle  of  a  wheel,  and  whithersoever 
the  spirit  went  the  wheels  went,  for  the  spirit 
of  the  living  creature  was  in  the  wheels.' ' 

The  class  of  1846,  of  which  Mr.  Houghton 
was  a  member,  contained  in  its  last  year  twenty- 
four  students,  and  of  that  number  about  a 
fourth  are  still  living,  fifty  years  after  gradua- 
tion. One  of  the  number,  Mr.  Neziah  Wright 
Bliss,  at  the  time  hailing  from  Bradford,  and 
now  a  resident  of  Chicago,  has  kindly  given  me 
his  recollections  of  his  fellow-student.  He  had 
known  the  Houghton  family  in  Bradford;  in- 
deed, a  sister  of  his  at  one  time  was  engaged 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  25 

to  be  married  to  a  brother  of  Mr.  Houghton. 
Oscar  Houghton  he  had  known  but  slightly, 
since  he  was  but  a  boy  when  he  left  Bradford. 
"  Some  days/'  Mr.  Bliss  says,  "  or  perhaps 
weeks,  after  my  entering  with  the  Freshman 
class  of  1842  at  Burlington,  a  tall  young  man, 
slim  and  very  much  bent  or  bowed,  as  homely  of 
feature  as  Abraham  Lincoln,  and  as  awkward 
and  ungainly  in  person  and  manners,  came  up 
to  me  on  the  campus,  and  asked  if  I  was  Nezi 
Bliss  (my  name  is  Neziah)  of  Bradford,  telling 
me  he  was  Oscar  Houghton.  Of  course  I  knew 
all  about  him  at  once  (as  to  his  antecedents), 
and  was  glad  to  know  him  again.  I  was  very 
small  for  my  age  (I  was  then  sixteen),  and, 
having  been  prepared  to  enter  a  year  before 
(but  remained  at  the  academy  a  year  longer  on 
account  of  size  as  much  as  age),  I  was  unusually 
well  prepared  for  those  days.  Several  of  my 
former  classmates  at  the  academy  were  then 
Sophomores  at  various  colleges, — one  now 
Rev.  0.  T.  Lanphear,  at  Burlington.  I  found 
that  Oscar  had  been,  in  fact  was  then,  a  type- 
setter in  a  printing-office,  and  was  so  poorly 
prepared  to  enter  college  that  he  could  barely 


26  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

squeeze  in.  The  reason  for  this  was  entirely 
legitimate:  he  had  to  support  himself,  while 
preparing  to  enter  college,  by  an  industry  that 
was  not  very  lucrative ;  and  he  had  to  attend 
the  academy  as  he  could,  and  oftentimes  study 
by  himself  without  instructors.  All  this  he 
told  me,  and,  without  in  any  way  announcing 
any  boastful  determination,  said  he  was  going 
to  try  it  and  see  if  he  could  catch  up  and  keep 
up ;  that  it  would  be  hard  work,  as  he  would 
still  have  his  living  to  make,  as  well  as  his  tui- 
tion and  expenses  of  text-books  and  clothing 
to  meet.  In  entering,  he  registered  himself  as 
of  Portage,  New  York,  which  was  doubtless 
the  place  to  which  his  father's  family  removed 
from  Bradford,  and  his  room  the  first  year 
was  No.  4  South  College ;  the  next  year  he 
roomed  and  boarded  at  Mrs.  Coon's ;  the  third 
year  he  again  roomed  in  college  (North  Col- 
lege, No.  2),  registering  those  two  years  as  of 
Burlington ;  but  in  our  Senior  year  he  roomed 
at  Mr.  Cook's,  and  registered  as  of  Dana,  Mas- 
sachusetts, and  so  wrote  his  name  and  place 
of  birth,  as  well  as  date,  in  my  autographs  of 
the  class.  Of  course,  under  these  adverse  cir- 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  27 

cumstances,  Mr.  Houghton's  beginnings  in  the 
class  were  inconspicuous,  and  little  attention 
was  paid  to  him  at  first  by  the  class  gener- 
ally, in  which  were  a  considerable  number  of 
well-prepared  students  of  mature  age,  notably 
Aiken  and  Lull,  Belcher  and  Divoll,  Hitch- 
cock and  Jameson,  May  and  Prentiss,  Steb- 
bings  and  Wainwright,  and  later  Nelson ;  but 
being  a  personal  friend,  I  could  not  but  no- 
tice, and  did  notice,  how  gradually,  day  by 
day  and  week  by  week,  Oscar  Houghton  was 
gaining  and  growing,  delivering  better  recita- 
tions and  becoming  better  known  to  his  class, 
more,  I  am  convinced,  by  his  inveterate  good- 
nature and  his  sterling  honesty  and  integrity 
than  by  his  increase  in  scholarship.  It  was 
the  custom  for  all  the  students  of  that  day  to 
attend  prayers  in  the  chapel  at  sunrise  and 
sunset  the  year  round,  and  religious  services 
at  the  chapel  at  first,  and  later  at  the  White 
Church  (so  called),  unless  a  permit  had  been 
obtained  to  attend  elsewhere.  I  obtained  a 
permit  to  attend  St.  Paul's  Episcopal  Church, 
then  in  charge  of  Bishop  Hopkins,  a  man  of 
great  force.  Houghton,  being  a  member  of 


28  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

the  Methodist  Church  at  Burlington,  of  course 
attended  there.  One  Sunday  he  invited  me 
to  go  with  him  to  church,  which  I  did,  and 
found  carpeted  aisles,  cushioned  seats,  chan- 
deliers, an  upholstered  pulpit,  and  a  fashion- 
ably dressed,  beribboned  and  bejeweled  au- 
dience. I  was  taken  by  surprise,  as  the 
Methodists  of  my  native  town  insisted  on 
the  rule  of  excessive  plainness  and  simplicity, 
and  on  making  the  seats,  as  well  as  psalms, 
penitential.  I  called  Oscar's  attention  to  the 
difference,  and  asked  if  he  was  sure  of  the 
place.  He  was  embarrassed,  but  got  out  of 
the  dilemma  by  explaining  that,  even  in  the 
Methodist  Church,  what  was  the  enforced  rule 
in  poorer  neighborhoods  could  not  be  en- 
forced in  wealthier  ones. 

"  At  that  time  there  were  only  two  public 
societies  in  the  college,  the  Phi  Sigma  Nu  and 
the  University  Institute,  and  the  practice  was, 
after  sufficient  time  had  elapsed,  for  the  upper 
classes  to  form  some  estimate  of  the  charac- 
ter and  capacities  of  the  Freshmen,  to  take 
the  class  list,  and  for  the  society,  which  for 
that  year  had  the  choice,  to  select  the  first  or 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  29 

second  name  on  the  list,  and  then  take  every 
other  one  in  the  list  to  its  end,  so  that  one 
half  of  each  class  went  to  each  society  some- 
what by  lot.  Houghton  and  I  both  fell  to 
the  Phi  Sigma  Nu.  At  that  time  the  parties 
in  the  societies  were  divided  on  the  lines  of 
Church  or  Non-Church,  Liberals  or  Conserva- 
tives, but,  with  the  usual  exaggeration  of  col- 
lege life,  were  denominated  Blues  and  Bloats. 
Without  any  essential  reason  on  either  of  our 
parts,  Houghton  fell  to  the  Blues  and  I  to 
the  Bloats,  and  my  party  was  in  power  in 
holding  the  offices  during  our  entire  college 
course;  but  we  always  elected  Houghton  to  an 
office,  generally  that  of  treasurer,  on  account 
of  the  universal  love  and  respect  with  which 
he  was  regarded,  for  he  never  in  his  life  (I 
believe)  made  himself  offensive  in  any  way  to 
any  one.  Early  in  the  history  of  our  society 
life,  Oscar  Houghton  began  to  take  part  in  the 
debates.  To  do  so  was  by  no  means  general ; 
a  few  members  generally  were  the  speakers, 
and  the  great  mass  of  members  were  listeners 
only.  It  was  as  hard,  up-hill  work  for  Mr. 
Houghton  to  take  part  in  the  debates  as  it 


30  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

was  to  work  up  in  his  recitations.  He  was 
troubled  immensely  with  what  I  suppose  the 
French  call  mauvaise  honte.  He  would  get 
up,  bent  over  almost  in  a  semicircle,  and  be- 
gin a  stammering,  hesitating,  awkward,  lum- 
bering speech,  but  nevertheless  always  with 
a  thought  or  idea  at  the  bottom  which  he 
could  not  express  or  get  out;  he  would  be 
openly  laughed  at  by  some  and  pitied  by  his 
more  intimate  friends,  and  he  would  give  up 
and  sit  down,  laughing  himself  with  the  others 
at  his  own  failure,  and  by  that  means  relieving 
both  those  who  laughed  and  those  who  pitied 
of  all  embarrassment ;  but  he  would  soon  be 
up  again,  and  sooner  or  later  he  would  some- 
how and  after  a  fashion  express  a  thought  on 
the  subject  under  discussion  that  would  com- 
mand the  attention  and  respect  of  all.  This 
went  on  in  the  society  and  in  the  class-room, 
and  not  so  slowly  as  you  might  suppose,  be- 
cause, when  we  held  our  Sophomore  exhi- 
bition, May  16,  1844,  Houghton  had  so 
advanced  that  he  was  assigned  the  honorable 
place  of  the  closing  speech  of  the  afternoon, 
his  subject  being  a  characteristic  one,  for  the 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  31 

handling  of  which  he  was  evidently  peculiarly 
well  qualified,  to  wit,  '  The  True  Ideal  of  a 
Manly  Character ; '  while  to  your  late  Judge 
John  W.  May,  the  oldest  and  most  accom- 
plished scholar  of  the  class,  was  assigned  the 
closing  address  of  the  evening,  his  subject 
being  '  Heroism.'  At  our  Junior  exhibition, 
Mr.  Houghton  opened  the  evening  exercises 
by  an  address  on  *  The  Idea  of  Liberty  among 
the  Ancient  Greeks,'  and  again,  in  our  grad- 
uation exercises,  opened  the  second  session, 
his  subject  being  ( The  Necessity  and  True 
Method  of  a  System  of  State  Education/ 

"  His  success  and  standing  in  his  class  in 
scholarship  was  equal  to,  if  not  greater  than, 
his  success  as  an  essayist ;  and  at  the  close  of 
our  college  years  no  man  commanded  more 
the  respect  of  the  class  than  did  Mr.  Hough- 
ton,  and  I  am  sure  no  man  was  so  universally 
esteemed  and  loved.  If  I  were  to  estimate 
the  elements  of  his  character  which  brought 
to  him  the  great  measure  of  success  that  was 
accorded  to  him  in  his  lif  e,  I  should  say  it  was 
his  entire  and  incorruptible  honesty  and  in- 
tegrity, bred  in  the  bone  and  reaching  clear 


32  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

through,  patent  upon  the  face  of  all  his  acts. 
This,  supplemented  by  his  exceeding  kindness 
of  heart  and  never-failing  good-nature,  gave 
him  those  advantages  that  commanded  the 
success  he  met  and  deserved.  .  .  . 

"  And  now,  Mr.  Scudder,  I  have  written  to 
you  my  impressions  of  my  friend  and  class- 
mate, just  as  I  should  wish  you  to  have  writ- 
ten me  had  I  inquired  instead  of  you,  giving 
you  the  facts  as  they  were  at  the  time,  not 
undertaking  (after  the  event)  to  make  out 
any  great  things  as  earnests  or  prognostica- 
tions of  the  success  afterwards  attained.  Mr. 
Houghton  never  seemed  to  me,  as  in  the  case 
of  some  I  have  known,  to  set  up  any  special 
ideal  to  which  he  would  strive  to  attain.  I 
don't  think  he  ever  thought  of  '  aiming  high,' 
or  particularly  of  ' aiming'  at  all,  but  I  do 
think  he  quietly  and  unostentatiously  was  de- 
termined to  do  as  thoroughly  and  well  as  he 
could  whatever  his  hand  found  to  do,  and 
that  he  in  everything  and  everywhere  con- 
scientiously did  his  work,  leaving  the  conse- 
quences to  follow  as  a  matter  of  course,  with- 
out in  any  case  particularly  contemplating 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  33 

them ;  and  I  believe  it  was  this  that  largely 
commanded  the  confidence  of  his  business 
associates  in  Cambridge,  which  to  an  unusual 
degree  contributed  to  his  success.  He  has 
gone,  but  he  has  left  a  most  fragrant  memory 
among  his  friends,  and  to  his  family  a  name 
and  a  character  that  will  command  the  utmost 
respect  of  all." 

To  this  vivid  reminiscence  by  Mr.  Bliss 
may  be  added  the  memorabilia  of  other  of 
Mr.  Houghton's  surviving  classmates.  Mr. 
William  H.  Dodge,  now  of  Westboro',  Mas- 
sachusetts, writes :  — 

"  I  was  not  intimately  acquainted  with  Mr. 
Houghton  outside  of  his  immediate  college 
duties,  but  in  the  class  and  lecture  room  I  sat 
near  him  during  our  entire  college  course. 
He  was  one  of  the  older  members  of  our 
class,  being,  I  think,  nearly  twenty-four  at 
graduation,  and  had  then  a  well-developed, 
steady,  reliable,  and  manly  character. 

"  As  I  remember  him,  while  not  particularly 
excelling  in  any  department  of  college  study, 
he  never  failed  or  did  poor  work,  but  was  a 
well-balanced,  all-round,  good  average  student. 


34  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

His  written  productions  were  always  heavily 
loaded  with  good,  sound  sense.  Had  he  spent 
less  time  in  the  printing-office,  working  for 
money  to  help  pay  his  expenses,  he  would 
doubtless  have  taken  higher  rank  in  college 
work.  I  think  he  gave  very  little  if  any  time 
to  college  games  or  social  pleasures  that  would 
not  yield  some  profit  to  present  or  coming 
real  life-work." 

Mr.  Horace  E.  Stebbings,  of  Chicago,  adds 
his  recollection  in  these  words :  — 

"  I  am  glad  to  contribute  any  information, 
however  little,  in  relation  to  the  college  life  of 
my  friend  Houghton,  for  he  was  my  friend 
and  I  always  called  him  '  Oscar.'  We  were 
classmates  for  four  years.  Our  time  —  his 
time  especially  —  was  fully  occupied.  We 
had  fewer  leisure  hours  together  perhaps 
than  students  now  have.  We  often  worked 
together,  however,  and  saw  new  things  and 
realized  new  relations  as  a  result  of  our  work. 
How  can  I  cut  it  short  ?  Houghton  was  one 
of  the  most  genial,  kind-hearted  young  men  of 
them  all,  and  hence  perhaps  I  was  drawn  to 
him.  It  always  seemed  to  me  that  I  was  his 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  35 

welcome  companion,  — persona  grata  in  mod- 
ern phrase,  —  and  I  loved  him  for  that.  He 
was  lightly  built  in  frame,  and  so  seemed 
taller  in  stature  than  most ;  deliberate  of 
speech ;  of  lively  intelligence ;  an  earnest, 
honest,  unsophisticated  Yankee  boy.  He  was 
a  printer,  as  you  know,  and  earned  money  by 
his  art  while  in  college.  Most  young  men  of 
that  time  '  paddled  their  own  canoe.'  He  set 
types,  read  proof,  etc.,  in  fact  did  almost 
everything  at  times,  in  the  printing-office  of 
Chauncy  Goodrich,  of  Burlington,  Vermont. 
There  he  met  Father  O'Calligan,  an  amiable 
old  priest  of  the  town,  who  wrote  books  of  va- 
rious sorts,  one  Of  Usury.  He  and  Hough- 
ton  together  corrected  the  proofs.  The  old 
gentleman  would  sometimes  get  inspired  re- 
reading his  own  text,  and  stop  the  really 
useful  work  and  consume  the  time  lecturing 
Houghton,  his  audience  of  one,  on  the  topics 
of  the  chapters.  Houghton  said  he  didn't 
think  it  made  any  difference  to  him,  since  he 
was  paid  by  the  hour.  The  two  became  really 
attached  to  each  other,  —  the  one  a  highly 
educated,  confirmed  old  Papist,  the  other  a 


36  HENKY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

young  Protestant  student,  and  a  zealous  Meth- 
odist at  that.  It  always  seemed  to  me  a  funny 
relationship,  but  serves  to  show  how  very  easy 
it  is  to  throw  away  dogma  when  warm  hearts 
and  loving  natures  meet. 

"  I  remember  how  we  often  picked  out  the 
Greek  together  by  the  roots,  and  wondered 
how  far  we  should  ever  go  to  reap  the  ripe 
crops  that  grow  out  of  these.  Houghton, 
like  many  other  students,  did  not  like  to  be 
hindered  and  limited  by  the  study  of  what 
seemed  to  him  unimportant  details.  We  were, 
for  instance,  put  upon  an  indigestible  diet  of 
Greek  prosody  for  a  while.  Houghton  said : 
'  I  wonder  if  Professor thinks  I  care  any- 
thing about  the  feet  of  those  old  Greek  poets. 
I  care  a  great  deal  more  about  their  heads.* " 

When  Mr.  Houghton  was  seventy  years 
old,  a  notice  of  the  fact  in  the  press  brought 
a  brief  note  of  congratulation  to  him  from 
another  classmate,  J.  W.  Taylor,  of  Syracuse, 
New  York,  in  which  the  writer  says :  "  It 
must  be  now  near  fifty  years  since  I  became 
acquainted  with  you,  daily  toiling  up  the  steep 
ascent  of  College  Hill,  in  Burlington,  to  the 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  37 

recitations  in  Alma  Mater.  I  remember  it 
seemed  to  me  a  wonderful  achievement  that 
you  should  be  able  to  set  type  all  day  at  the 
case,  and  still  find  time  to  study  and  make 
the  three  trips  from  down  town  and  back 
again  and  have  any  vitality  left !  Through 
the  lapse  of  time  I  can  see  the  wonderful 
nerve  it  required,  and  the  iron  will  to  back  it. 
But  the  same  determined  spirit  has  borne  its 
fruit  through  these  fifty  years." 

It  is  pleasant  to  show  the  response  to  this 
friendly  spirit  of  his  classmates,  in  a  letter 
which  Mr.  Houghton  wrote  to  Mr.  Stebbings, 
December  1,  1887 :  — 

4  PARK  STREET,  BOSTON, 
December  1, 1887. 

MY  OLD  FRIEND  AND  CLASSMATE  STEB- 
BINGS, —  I  have  often  thought  of  you,  and 
was  very  glad  to  receive  your  photograph. 
I  supposed  it  represented  you,  although  it 
was  very  different  from  the  stubbed  young 
man  that  I  knew  in  college;  and  I  should 
have  responded,  but  I  did  not  know  where  to 
address  you,  until  I  met  Jameson,  who  kindly 
gave  me  your  address,  and  agreed  to  be  the 


38  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

medium  through  which  I  could  convey  my 
shadow  to  you  in  return  for  yours.  I  think 
it  is  very  pleasant  to  have  the  faces  of  our  old 
friends,  even  if  the  gray  hairs  have  begun  to 
show.  I  think  I  am  a  little  younger  than  I 
was  forty  years  ago  when  we  were  together, 
and  I  am  quite  anxious  to  know  whether  you 
retain  that  umbrella  that  you  broke  over  the 
head  of  the  Sophomore  who  was  trying  to 
intrude  himself  into  your  room  without  per- 
mission. 

I  heard  that  Mr.  Bliss  was  at  Burlington 
this  year  at  Commencement.  I  think  I  should 
have  gone  there  to  meet  him  alone  if  I  had 
known  he  was  to  have  been  there.  I  was 
there  a  week  or  more  after  the  Commence- 
ment, and  heard  of  him.  He  and  I  were 
great  friends  in  college,  and  I  have  always 
taken  a  kindly  interest  in  him.  I  wish  he 
would  send  me  his  photograph,  and  I  shall  be 
very  glad  to  retaliate  if  he  should  do  so.  I 
am  glad  to  believe  that  both  you  and  he  are 
prospered  so  far  as  this  world's  goods  go,  and 
I  am  delighted  with  the  description  of  your 
family.  I  should  be  glad  to  see  any  of  them 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  39 

if  they  come  to  Boston,  and  I  should  like  to 
take  you  to  my  house  and  show  you  mine.  I 
have  three  of  the  best  girls  that  there  are 
in  the  country,  except  yours,  and  they  are  a 
great  comfort  to  me.  I  have  a  son  also,  who 
is  with  me  in  the  business,  and  who  has  been 
married  a  year  or  more.  My  son  lives  in  the 
house  he  was  born  in,  and  my  girls  are  still 
with  me. 

Reciprocating  heartily  your  blessings,  and 
hoping  we  may  meet  either  here  or  in  Chicago, 
I  am,  as  ever, 

Your  friend, 

H.  0.  HOUGHTON. 


m 

WHEN  he  was  graduated  from  the  Univer- 
sity of  Vermont  in  1846,  Mr.  Houghton  was 
in  debt  for  his  education  to  the  amount  of 
$300,  but  he  was  equipped  for  seeking  his 
fortune  with  a  college  training,  knowledge  of 
a  craft,  good  health,  and  indomitable  energy. 
His  intention,  like  that  of  many  young  grad- 
uates, was  to  take  up  school-teaching  until 
the  way  opened  for  a  permanent  vocation; 
and  he  appears  to  have  had  a  partial  engage- 
ment for  the  winter  of  1846-47  to  teach  in 
Hardwick,  Massachusetts,  not  far  from  Dana, 
where  his  parents  were  now  residing.  But, 
missing  the  first  opportunity  which  presented 
itself,  he  fell  back  upon  his  craft  as  a  printer, 
and  found  also  a  chance  to  do  reporter's 
work  on  the  Boston  Traveller.  It  is  not 
improbable  that  the  steps  which  led  him  into 
printing  as  a  vocation  were  taken  somewhat 
reluctantly;  for  a  college  education  was  re- 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  41 

garded  in  his  youth  as  more  distinctly  the 
entrance  upon  one  of  the  learned  professions 
than  it  is  to-day,  and  the  exertions  and  sacri- 
fices required  for  securing  such  an  education 
would  seem  scarcely  justified  by  a  mechani- 
cal occupation  afterward.  I  never  heard  Mr. 
Houghton  speak  in  this  strain,  but  I  have 
often  heard  him  set  a  high  value  on  the  disci- 
plinary collegiate  training  of  his  day,  which 
supposed  hard  intellectual  labor  for  four  years. 
Certainly  in  his  case  the  effect  of  this  training 
upon  his  success  as  a  printer  and  captain  of 
industry  was  very  great.  He  was  not  espe- 
cially dexterous  as  a  mechanic.  His  work  at 
the  case,  to  be  sure,  had  given  him  facility  in 
setting  type,  and  I  recall  an  odd  illustration 
of  special  expertness  which  his  practice  had 
given  him.  He  had  no  liking  for  games,  but 
when  his  children  were  playing  the  familiar 
letter-game,  which  consists  in  constructing  a 
word  out  of  a  jumble  of  letters,  he  would 
take  the  unassorted  letters  and  arrange  them 
at  once  in  their  proper  order.  He  knew  the 
parts  of  a  printing-press,  but  he  had  not 
the  skill  which  some  master  printers  had,  as 


42  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

the  late  Mr.  Welch,  for  example,  to  take  a 
press  apart  and  put  it  together  again.  What 
he  did  have,  the  gift  especially  of  his  college 
training,  was  the  power,  so  much  more  sub- 
stantial than  mere  empiricism,  to  make  his 
experiments  in  his  head,  —  to  see  what  he 
wished  to  accomplish,  and  what  means,  me- 
chanical or  other,  were  needed  to  produce  the 
desired  result.  This  power  was  unquestion- 
ably confirmed  by  many  years  of  experience, 
so  that  his  knowledge  of  what  went  to  the 
making  of  a  good  book  —  paper,  ink,  cut  of 
type,  presswork  —  was  unhesitating,  but  it 
was  a  power  which  sprang  rather  from  the 
logical  faculty  behind  the  eye  than  from  the 
eye  and  touch  ;  and  it  was,  as  I  have  said,  a 
native  gift  trained  and  ordered  by  intellec- 
tual discipline. 

Another  element  of  success  in  his  vocation 
which  he  brought  with  him  from  college  was 
also  a  native  gift,  enhanced  in  value  by  colle- 
giate training,  —  the  gift  of  good  taste,  that 
quality  of  selection  and  reserve  which  lies  at 
the  bottom  of  genuine  success  in  any  mechanic 
art  that  appeals  in  the  last  analysis  to  the  cul- 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  43 

tivated  eye  and  mind.  It  was  an  unfailing 
source  of  pleasure  to  him  to  examine  the  work 
of  the  great  Italian  printers,  whose  masters 
were  in  turn  the  artists  of  the  illuminated 
missals  of  the  days  before  printing,  and  he 
never  wearied  of  inculcating  those  fundamen- 
tal principles  of  good  proportion  and  simpli- 
city which  may  be  traced  in  all  the  acceptable 
work  from  Aldus  down.  There  was  a  certain 
rule  of  proportion  for  the  printed  page,  which 
an  architect  once  formulated  for  him ;  it  was 
a  rule  which  mechanically  confirmed  what  his 
own  good  taste  had  fixed  independently ;  and, 
in  any  discussion  as  to  a  proposed  page,  he 
was  pretty  sure  to  apply  the  rule  as  an  author- 
ity, but  he  did  not  need  the  rule  to  satisfy 
himself :  his  eye  was  quite  as  trustworthy. 
It  was  the  custom  in  the  office,  never  inter- 
mitted to  the  last,  to  refer  every  specimen 
page  and  every  title-page  to  him  for  approval, 
and  no  book  could  be  carried  forward  or  com- 
pleted until  the  letters  H.  0.  H.  were  upon 
these  pages. 

"  The  fact  has  often  been  commented  on," 
says  Mr.  Houghton  in  his  address  on  Early 


44  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

Printing  in  America,  "  that  the  printing  of 
the  first  printers  excelled  in  beauty  of  exe- 
cution that  of  any  subsequent  issues  of  the 
printing-press.  The  reason  for  this,  I  think, 
will  be  apparent  when  we  consider  that  the 
first  types  were  imitations  of  the  chirography 
of  the  monks,  and  from  long  experience  and 
practice  this  chirography  had  come  to  be  very 
beautiful ;  but,  as  was  inevitable  when  speed 
became  an  important  element  and  the  types 
became  mechanical  appliances,  this  love  of 
beauty  gave  way,  as  has  been  the  case  always, 
to  utility  and  speed.  The  old  German  text, 
also,  through  the  process  of  years,  has  gradu- 
ally given  way  to  the  more  common  Latin 
text,  and,  as  we  see  in  the  modern  newspaper, 
the  process  of  deterioration  still  goes  on  in 
obedience  to  the  demands  of  haste.  There 
is  a  return  now  among  the  cultivated  to  the 
more  careful  printing  of  earlier  times.  An 
evidence  that  this  early  printing  was,  as  near 
as  could  be,  transcripts  of  the  careful  penman- 
ship of  the  old  monks,  can  be  seen  in  the 
great  folios  in  that  remarkable  library  at 
Cairo,  where  it  is  difficult  even  for  an  expert, 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  45 

without  close  inspection,  to  say  whether  these 
books  were  printed  or  written." 

A  brief  series  of  letters  to  his  parents  after 
leaving  the  University,  and  before  setting  up 
for  himself  as  a  printer  in  Cambridge,  gives  in 
a  random  fashion  Mr.  Houghton's  apparently 
desultory  occupation  for  these  two  or  three 
years.  The  letters  give  also,  especially  to 
those  who  knew  him  in  his  later  years,  curious 
little  intimations  of  his  temperament,  and  of 
the  resolute  spirit  which  attended  him  in  the 
early  reaching  out  after  a  definite  plan  of 
life. 

BOSTON,  October  20, 1846. 

DEAR  PARENTS,  —  I  found  when  I  arrived 
in  Worcester  that  the  paper  which  had  been 
sent  me  had  been  nearly  a  week  on  the  road, 
and  the  situation  had  been  filled  up  when  I 
arrived,  and  therefore  I  came  on  to  Boston  the 
next  morning.  When  I  got  here  I  found  Pres- 
ident Wheeler  at  the  hotel  where  I  stopped, 
and  he  gave  me  a  very  flattering  recommen- 
dation, by  the  aid  of  which  I  have  succeeded 
in  getting  a  situation  for  a  month  at  least  in 
the  Daily  Traveller  office,  one  of  the  best 


46  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

papers  in  the  city.  My  business  is  to  be,  if 
I  am  prospered  so  as  to  do  it  readily,  that  of 
reporter;  that  is,  going  about  the  city  and 
picking  up  the  news  and  writing  it  out  for 
the  paper,  attending  lectures  and  giving  ac- 
counts of  them.  Perhaps  I  may  come  home 
at  the  end  of  the  month,  and  perhaps  stay 
longer.  My  salary  is  not  very  large  at  first, 
but  if  I  remain  and  succeed  well  it  is  to  be 
increased.  I  have  found  several  acquaint- 
ances in  the  city,  and  by  means  of  one  of 
them  I  obtained  board  in  a  private  family  the 
first  day  I  came  here,  so  that  it  has  not  cost 
me  as  much  as  it  would  at  a  public  house ;  and 
I  have  earned  about  two  dollars  in  cash  in  a 
printing-office,  besides  going  on  top  of  Bun- 
ker Hill  Monument,  out  to  Cambridge,  etc. ; 
and  I  am  not  at  all  sorry  I  came  here;  in 
fact  it  seems  to  me  providential. 

I  wish  you  would  send  me  all  the  letters 
and  papers  that  have  come  for  me  since  I  left. 
If  you  will  pay  the  postage  on  the  letters,  and 
get  Mr.  Kussell  or  Johnson  to  do  them  all  up 
in  one  package,  they  will  come  cheaper  than 
they  would  separately,  as  they  will  then  come 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  47 

by  weight.  If  you  can  send  me  some  more 
stockings  and  my  two  best  night-shirts  by  Mr. 
Russell,  I  should  like  it.  They  could  proba- 
bly find  me  at  the  Daily  Traveller  office  on 
Court  Street.  I  wish  the  letters  directed 
"  Traveller  Printing  -  office,  Boston."  I  am 
anxious  to  hear  from  you,  how  you  are  get- 
ting along,  and  I  will  endeavor  to  write  again 
soon  if  you  answer  this  immediately.  I  think 
I  shall  be  able  to  send  you  papers  occasion- 
ally. I  am  very  much  pleased  with  Boston, 
and  have  been  treated  very  courteously  and 
kindly  by  gentlemen  who  were  entire  strangers 
to  me.  I  spent  an  hour  or  two  in  the  library 
of  the  University  in  Cambridge,  which  con- 
sists of  52,000  volumes.  I  called  on  Mrs. 
Chamberlin  yesterday,  and  found  her  quite 
smart. 

Very  affectionately  your  son, 

H.  0.  HOUGHTON. 

BOSTON,  October  13, 1847. 

DEAR  PARENTS,  —  I  am  getting  rather  anx- 
ious to  hear  from  you,  as  I  have  not  heard 
a  syllable  since  I  left  home.  Neither  have  I 


48  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

heard  anything  from  Manila  or  Maria.  Albert 
spent  nearly  two  weeks  in  Boston,  and  has 
written  to  me  two  or  three  times  since,  short 
business  letters.  I  bought  a  quantity  of  cran- 
berries for  him  a  few  days  since.  He  and  his 
family  sailed  from  New  York  about  the  first 
of  October. 

Soon  after  my  return  from  home  Mr.  Dick- 
inson sold  a  large  part  of  his  establishment, 
but  I  was  retained  in  his  employ  and  promoted 
to  the  office  of  proof-reader,  which  is  about 
the  highest  notch  as  to  dignity  in  the  printing- 
office. 

I  saw  in  my  paper  last  evening  a  little  para- 
graph saying  that  a  Mr.  Haywood,  a  drover 
from  Jaffrey,  New  Hampshire,  had  his  pocket- 
book  stolen  from  him,  or  else  lost  it,  containing 
$3000  in  bank-bills.  He  was  in  Brighton  at 
the  time.  I  feared  from  the  description  that 
it  might  be  Elizabeth's  husband.  If  so,  they 
must  feel  very  bad  about  it. 

I  wrote  to  Mr.  Scott  that  you  would  send 
him  what  cheese  you  could  spare.  Mother,  if 
you  will  knit  for  me,  or  get  them  knit  for  me, 
three  or  four  pairs  of  good  substantial  socks, 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  49 

I  will  pay  you  50  cents  a  pair,  or  any  price  you 
please.  I  want  them  knit  long,  so  that  they 
will  come  up  to  the  tops  of  my  boots.  I  have 
a  quantity  of  old  clothes,  such  as  my  old  over- 
coat, pantaloons,  etc.,  which  I  would  like  to 
send  home,  if  you  would  wish  them,  but  I 
hardly  know  how  to  send  them.  I  have  not 
seen  Russell  this  fall;  has  he  been  down  yet? 
I  hope  he  will  call  on  me  when  he  comes. 
I  think  my  health  is  growing  better,  if  any- 
thing. I  am  anxious  to  know  how  you  are 
getting  along,  and  I  hope  you  will  write  to 
me,  if  not  more  than  two  lines,  and  direct 
Dickinson's  Type  Foundry,  4  Wilson  Lane, 
Boston.  My  earnest  prayer  is  that  your  last 
days  may  be  made  comfortable,  and  when  you 
leave  this  world  you  may  be  prepared  for  a 
better  habitation  in  another. 

Affectionately  your  son, 

OSCAR. 

BOSTON,  September  2, 1848. 

DEAR  PARENTS,  —  You  will  notice,  by  a 
circular  that  I  sent  to-day,  that  I  have  changed 
my  place  of  business,  as  I  intimated  I  might 


50  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

do  when  at  home.  Business  declined  at  the 
Boston  Type  Foundry,  so  that  they  thought 
they  could  not  afford  to  keep  two  proof-read- 
ers, and  of  course  I  was  discharged.  They 
expressed  themselves  perfectly  satisfied  with 
me,  however,  and  gave  me  a  letter  of  recom- 
mendation. Mr.  Band  made  me  an  offer  soon 
after  to  come  into  his  office  and  take  in  extra 
proof-reading,  by  which  arrangement,  if  I  am 
prospered,  I  hope  to  do  better  than  I  have 
been  doing. 

The  Traveller  folks  told  me  they  wished  to 
send  me  to  Worcester  to  attend  a  Democratic 
Convention  next  Wednesday.  If  there  are 
any  delegates  from  your  quarter,  please  to 
send  some  word  by  them. 

Did  Daniel  come  home  this  summer  ?  Why 
did  he  not  come  to  Boston  ?  Albert  is  not 
coming  this  summer,  and  Mr.  Ready  has  not 
yet  arrived.  Do  not  fail  to  let  me  hear  from 
you  soon,  and  direct  care  of  G.  C.  Band  &  Co., 
No.  3  Cornhill. 

Affectionately  your  son, 

OSCAR. 

P.  S.  I  went  on  Wednesday  last  to  Ply- 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  51 

mouth,  and  put  my  foot  on  the  rock  where 
the  Pilgrims  landed. 

The  following  is  the  circular  referred  to  in 
the  previous  letter  :  — 

A  CARD. 

TO  PRINTERS,    PUBLISHERS,    AND  AUTHORS. 

The  undersigned,  formerly  proof-reader  in  Mr. 
S.  N.  Dickinson's  stereotype  foundry,  has  taken  a 
desk  in  the  office  of  G.  C.  Kand  &  Company  for 
the  purpose  of  accommodating  those  printers  who 
may  need  extra  assistance  in  proof-reading,  or 
whose  business  will  not  warrant  the  constant  em- 
ployment of  a  professional  reader.  By  this  ar- 
rangement, it  is  believed,  proofs  can  be  read  with 
promptness  and  dispatch,  and  at  about  the  same 
expense  as  in  the  office  where  the  work  of  composi- 
tion is  performed. 

If  a  long  and  varied  experience,  the  facilities 
afforded  by  a  regular  collegiate  education,  and  a 
thoroughly  practical  knowledge  of  printing,  may 
tend  in  any  degree  to  inspire  confidence,  it  is 
hoped  the  undertaking  may  meet  with  encourage- 
ment. 

Attention  given,  also,  to  the  preparation  of 
manuscripts  for  the  press  when  desired. 


52  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

KEFEKENCES.  —  Mr.  S.  Phelps ;  James  M.  Shute, 
agent  of  the  Boston  Type  and  Stereotype  Foundry ; 
C.  C.  P.  Moody,  former  partner  of  Mr.  Dickinson ; 
Messrs.  Freeman  &  Bolles ;  Messrs.  Andrews  & 
Punchard,  editors  of  The  Daily  Evening  Travel- 
ler ;  and  a  large  number  of  authors  and  publishers. 

N.  B.  For  reading  first  proofs,  an  intelligent 
boy  provided  to  read  copy  without  extra  charge. 

H.  O.  HOUGHTON. 
No.  3  COBNHILL,  BOSTON, 
August  29,  1848. 

BOSTON,  November  16, 1848. 

DEAR  PARENTS,  —  I  was  very  agreeably 
surprised  one  morning  in  finding  a  letter  on 
my  desk  from  mother.  I  know  not  who 
brought  it  there,  but  I  have  not  had  such  a 
treat  for  some  time  past.  I  thank  you  for 
your  invitation  to  Thanksgiving,  and  designed 
to  avail  myself  of  it;  my  business,  however, 
is  of  such  a  nature  that  I  cannot  tell  possibly 
whether  I  can  be  there  or  not  on  that  day. 
But  I  hope  to  be  permitted  to  drop  in  upon 
you  in  the  course  of  two  or  three  weeks.  I 
went  to  Connecticut,  and  made  James  *  a  visit 

1  An  older  brother,  Kev.  James  Clay  Houghton,  of  Granby, 
Conn. 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  63 

on  Saturday  last.  I  found  them  all  well. 
They  have  a  fine  girl,  some  ten  months  old, 
with  a  white  head  and  a  deep-blue  eye.  James 
was  away  on  Sunday,  and  did  not  return  until 
Monday,  and  I  had  the  visit  with  his  family 
all  to  myself.  I  returned  to  Boston  on  Tues- 
day, after  having  had  a  very  pleasant  time. 

I  have  recently  had  an  offer  to  go  into  busi- 
ness here  which  seems  to  me  very  favorable. 
Mr.  Freeman,  of  the  firm  of  Freeman  &  Bolles, 
who  are  among  the  best  printers  in  the  city, 
if  not  the  very  best,  has  offered  to  sell  me  one 
half  of  the  office  for  $100  down  and  the  rest 
in  yearly  payments  of  $250  each.  He  esti- 
mates that  the  half  of  the  office  will  be  worth 
about  $3000,  which  is  to  be  left  to  referees 
to  say.  Messrs.  Little  &  Brown,  who  are  the 
most  extensive  publishers  of  law  books  in  New 
England,  if  not  in  the  United  States,  propose 
to  make  a  contract  with  us  to  do  all  their 
printing  that  we  can  do,  at  a  stipulated  price, 
which  will  probably  of  itself  be  sufficient  to 
keep  a  large  establishment  in  operation.  They 
are  building  a  large  office  in  Cambridge,  the 
rent  of  which  is  to  be  about  half  Freeman  & 


54  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

Bolles  are  now  paying  in  the  city.  Mr.  Bolles 
has  been  in  business  here  about  twenty  years, 
and  offers  to  put  his  experience  on  a  par  with 
my  education,  if  I  will  go  in  with  him.  Gen- 
tlemen here  in  the  city  have  agreed  to  sign 
a  note  for  me,  by  which  I  can  raise  $500  or 
$600.  Persons  here  who  are  acquainted  with 
the  business  tell  me  that  it  is  a  good  oppor- 
tunity, and  that  we  can  probably  make  $2000 
a  year  clear  of  expenses.  Mr.  Scott1  and 
James  both  speak  very  favorably  of  it,  and 
James  tried  to  raise  some  additional  funds  for 
me,  but  did  not  succeed.  I  will  try  and  come 
home  soon,  and  tell  you  more  about  it.  Till 
then  adieu. 

Affectionately  your  son, 

H.  0.  HOTJGHTON. 

P.  S.  Albert  has  a  daughter  a  month  or 
two  old.  They  call  it  Maria,  I  believe.  Mr. 
Scott's  family  are  well.  He  said  nothing 
about  the  cheese.  I  have  not  heard  from 
Marilla  for  a  long  time.  Write  soon.  I  am 
almost  out  of  socks. 

1  Mr.  David  Scott,  his  brother-in-law. 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  55 

The  last  of  these  letters  shows  Mr.  Hough- 
ton  just  on  the  eve  of  establishing  himself  in 
business  with  Mr.  Bolles,  but  still  lacking  the 
funds  needed  to  complete  the  bargain.  There 
is  a  story  that  he  was  at  work  on  the  morning 
of  the  day  when  the  option  was  to  expire. 
There  was  a  rap  at  the  door,  and,  in  response 
to  his  "Come  in,"  there  entered  a  countryman, 
who  inquired,  "Is  this  Oscar  Houghton?" 
He  was  told  that  it  was.  "  Well,  now,  Oscar, 
I  'm  right  glad  to  see  you,"  said  the  stranger; 
"my  wife  Sarah  said  that  when  I  came  to 
Boston  I  must  be  sure  and  see  her  cousin 
Oscar."  The  visitor  proved  to  be  a  well-to- 
do  New  England  farmer.  He  inquired  after 
his  relative's  affairs,  and  Mr.  Houghton  told 
him  of  his  plans,  and  stated  that  the  hour 
had  come  when  he  must  give  an  answer  to 
the  offer  made  him,  but  that  he  must  give  up 
the  chance  for  lack  of  the  needed  money. 
"How  much  do  you  lack,  Oscar?"  asked 
the  farmer.  "About  five  hundred  dollars," 
was  the  reply.  Whereupon  the  visitor,  who 
had  become  thoroughly  interested,  offered  to 
make  up  the  amount  in  a  loan.  As  nearly 


56  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

as  can  now  be  known,  the  amount  which  Mr. 
Houghton  raised  was  fifteen  hundred  dollars, 
one  third  of  which  was  raised  from  friends  on 
his  promissory  note,  one  third  was  lent  by 
Mr.  David  Scott,  and  one  third  by  his  cousin's 
husband,  Eufus  Heywood,  of  East  Jaffrey, 
New  Hampshire. 

The  office  was  first  established  on  Keming- 
ton  Street,  in  Cambridge,  and  a  glimpse  of 
the  activity  of  the  new  business  is  seen  in  a 
paragraph  of  a  letter  to  one  of  his  sisters, 
written  from  Cambridge,  March  5,  1849 : 
"Your  favor  dated  February  10  was  not  re- 
ceived until  this  evening.  I  had  business  in 
town,  and  went  to  the  post-office  and  found 
it  advertised.  You  know,  I  suppose,  that  I 
now  live  in  Cambridge,  and  when  you  write 
again  please  direct  there.  I  should  be  much 
gratified  to  see  you,  and  hope  I  may  have  the 
opportunity  before  you  leave  on  your  mis- 
sion. I  have  been  designing  to  visit  home,  if 
permitted  so  to  do,  about  the  first  of  April, 
but  it  would  be  very  difficult  for  me  to  leave 
now.  We  have  about  thirty  persons  in  our 
employ,  are  chock-full  of  business,  and  hardly 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  57 

settled  yet.  Please  to  let  me  know  your 
plans  definitely,  as  I  am  very  desirous  of  see- 
ing you  before  you  go." 

A  year  later  he  was  writing  to  his  parents : 

CAMBRIDGE,  February  18, 1850. 
DEAR  PARENTS,  —  I  am  getting  quite  anx- 
ious to  hear  from  you,  and  I  write  with  the 
hope  that  you  will  give  me  a  few  lines  in 
return.  Daniel  was  here  a  few  days  ago,  and 
left  here  for  Dana,  and  I  suppose  he  told  you 
all  about  me,  and  perhaps  made  a  sorry  story. 
I  sent  a  gold  dollar  by  him  for  mother,  which 
I  trust  he  delivered.  Our  business  has  given 
us  a  good  deal  of  trouble,  both  before  and 
since  I  was  home,  but  we  are  getting  along 
more  smoothly,  I  think,  now ;  and  I  am  con- 
fident, with  the  help  of  Providence,  we  shall 
prosper.  The  "strike"  will,  I  think,  work 
to  our  advantage  in  the  end,  as  we  get  better 
prices  now,  and  are  driving  a  heavier  business 
than  ever.  I  suppose  you  saw  in  the  Trav- 
eller an  account  of  the  "  striking "  one  of 
our  women  received  some  time  since.  There 
has  been  quite  a  noise  made  about  it. 


58  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

I  received  a  letter  from  Maria  a  few  days 
since ;  she  appeared  to  be  in  fine  health  and 
spirits.  The  Sioux  had  all  gone  a-hunting, 
and  she  and  Mr.  Hancock  had  gone  200 
miles  further  north  among  the  Winnebagoes, 
where  the  thermometer  stood  the  first  week 
or  two  in  January  at  27  and  30  degrees  below 
zero. 

,We  shall  look  for  Albert  in  March.  I 
think  I  shall  try  and  coax  him  to  go  home. 
Harriet  appears  to  be  getting  along  finely, 
and  likes  Boston  and  Boston  people  much 
better  than  she  did.  Her  father  wrote  that 
she  might  come  home  with  Albert  in  March, 
but  she  wrote  back  she  did  not  wish  to  go 
until  fall.  Harriet  Fyler  is  keeping  house 
this  winter  for  Governor  Collier,  and  has  not 
yet  gone  to  Wetumpka. 

Do  let  us  hear  how  you  are  getting  along, 
and  if  you  are  in  need  let  me  know  it.  May 
the  Lord  help  you  is  the  prayer  of 

Your  affectionate  son, 

OSCAR. 

The  religious  expression  at  the  close  of  this 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  59 

letter  was  not  a  mere  form  of  words.  Mr. 
Houghton  in  his  earliest  years  had  been 
under  the  influence  of  the  Congregational 
church,  but  the  example  of  his  eldest  sister 
led  him  to  cast  in  his  lot  with  the  Meth- 
odists. During  his  college  days  his  read- 
ing and  thinking  had  at  one  time  led  him 
to  question  the  doctrinal  basis  of  his  re- 
ligion, and  he  was  inclined  for  a  while  to 
the  Unitarian  statement ;  but  he  worked  out 
the  problem  with  the  result  of  becoming 
more  securely  established  on  the  foundations 
of  his  early  faith,  at  the  same  time  that  he 
acquired  a  habit  of  mind  which  gave  him 
intellectual  sympathy  with  a  wide  range  of 
religious  expression.  Dean  Huntington,  of 
Boston  University,  wrote  of  him :  "  He  did 
not  care  always  to  do  what  was  simply  con- 
ventional, or  the  thing  that  some  one  else 
expected  him  to  do,  but  he  had  clear  ideas  of 
duty  as  he  saw  it,  and  this  duty  he  was  glad 
to  do  with  all  his  strength.  His  type  was 
ethical.  The  emotional  kind  of  piety  did  not 
affect  him  deeply.  He  laid  the  emphasis  of  his 
belief  upon  integrity,  justice,  frugality,  self- 


60  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

respect,  and  charity  to  the  suffering  and 
needy."  It  is  a  confirmation  of  the  sturdy 
character  of  his  loyalty  to  the  Methodist  form 
of  religion,  which  he  believed  to  be  the  most 
practical  order  and  the  freest  from  the  perils 
which  beset  institutional  religion,  that  he  never 
swerved  from  an  identification  with  it,  though 
the  engagement  to  be  married,  which  he 
formed  at  the  beginning  of  his  career,  was 
with  a  member  of  the  Congregational  Church; 
and  he  was  brought  into  intimate  and  very 
admiring  relations  with  her  family,  though 
he  married  afterward  a  member  of  the  Baptist 
communion,  and  though,  as  years  went  on, 
his  wife  and  some  of  his  own  children  passed 
over  into  the  Episcopal  Church.  The  intimate 
connection  with  the  Methodist  Church,  though 
it  brought  him  into  positions  of  service  and 
responsibility  in  the  denomination,  did  not 
restrict  or  narrow  his  sympathy.  He  had  a 
very  great  appreciation  of  the  work  of  the 
American  Board  of  Commissioners  for  For- 
eign Missions;  and  he  was  wont  to  dilate 
upon  the  admirable  organization  of  the  Rom- 
ish Church,  as  well  as  upon  the  great  impor- 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  61 

tance  of  the  contention  of  that  church  that 
education  of  the  young  should  be  primarily 
religious.  It  was  not  merely  that  his  busi- 
ness brought  him  into  close  relations  with 
intellectual  men  of  various  creeds,  and  that 
his  business  sagacity  forbade  him  to  make  the 
lines  of  his  enterprise  coincide  with  the  lines 
of  his  ecclesiastical  relationship,  but  his  nature 
was  catholic  in  its  sympathy ;  he  was  at  once 
too  large  a  man  to  be  narrowly  sectarian,  or 
to  be  religiously  indifferent. 

Upon  first  coming  to  Boston  he  had  con- 
nected himself  with  the  Bromfield  Street 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  and  after  estab- 
lishing himself  in  Cambridge,  he  returned  for 
a  while  to  that  church  home.  Dr.  Warren, 
now  President  of  Boston  University,  was  pas- 
tor of  the  church  during  a  portion  of  that 
time,  and  writes :  — 

"  He  was  the  Assistant  Superintendent  of 
the  Sunday-school  of  the  Bromfield  Street 
Church  when,  with  less  than  four  years'  expe- 
rience in  the  ministry,  I  was  sent  thither  to  be 
the  pastor  of  such  men  as  he,  and  of  yet  older 
and  riper  saints,  such  as  Mother  Monroe, 


62  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

Jacob  Sleeper,  Isaac  Rich,  David  Snow,  and 
others  of  their  generation.  Mr.  Houghton 
was  already  a  man  of  mark  in  the  goodly 
congregation  that  filled  the  house.  It  was 
natural  that  it  should  be  so.  He  was  a  man 
of  liberal  education,  clear-headed,  warm- 
hearted, prosperous  in  business,  one  of  the 
comparatively  few  who  came  to  church  in  his 
own  family  carriage,  driving  all  the  way  from 
his  Cambridge  home,  yet  ready  to  remain  to 
attend  the  Sunday-school  and  to  do  his  part 
in  the  work  of  the  church.  Whenever  I  now 
think  of  those  days,  and  realize  that  he  was 
riper  than  his  pastor  by  ten  or  more  years  of 
Christian  experience  and  of  world-experience, 
I  marvel  that  he  could  have  listened  so  atten- 
tively, and  that  he  could  have  evinced  his 
friendly  feelings  in  such  manifold  and  encour- 
aging methods  as  he  did." 

There  was  another  reason  why  Mr.  Hough- 
ton  clung  to  his  Boston  connection.  He  had 
made  the  acquaintance  of  Miss  Elizabeth  Har- 
ris, and  the  acquaintance  had  ripened  into 
love,  so  that  an  engagement  of  marriage  took 
place;  but  Miss  Harris  was  frail  in  health 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  63 

and  was  attacked  by  consumption,  a  more  dis- 
tinctive New  England  disease  then  than  now, 
and  died,  so  that  the  marriage  did  not  take 
place.  Many  of  Mr.  Houghton' s  friends  will 
remember  the  strong  and  kindly  presence  in 
his  household  of  Miss  Mary  Harris,  "Aunt 
Mary,"  as  she  was  familiarly  known,  the  real 
aunt  of  Miss  Elizabeth  Harris,  and  the  titular 
aunt  of  the  young  family  that  afterward  grew 
up  under  her  eye,  for  she  made  her  home  with 
Mr.  Houghton  for  many  years  before  her 
death ;  the  respect  and  affection  he  had  for 
her,  and  the  confidence  she  had  in  him,  were 
manifest  to  all  who  knew  the  two  together. 
How  much  this  beautiful  connection  meant 
may  be  seen  from  the  impulse  which  led  Mrs. 
Houghton  to  give  to  her  eldest  daughter  the 
name  of  Elizabeth  Harris. 


IV 

THE  quarters  in  Kemington  Street  soon  be- 
came insufficient  for  the  growing  business, 
and  there  was  need  of  a  more  substantial 
establishment.  As  has  been  seen,  the  most 
important  connection  of  the  new  firm  was 
that  with  Messrs.  Little,  Brown  &  Company, 
of  Boston,  then  as  now  an  eminent  publishing 
house,  especially  of  law  books.  The  moving 
spirit  at  that  date  was  Mr.  James  Brown,  a 
warm  friend  of  the  elder  John  Murray,  from 
whom  he  named  a  son,  who  has  succeeded 
him  in  business.  Mr.  Brown  gave  the  young 
printer  substantial  encouragement,  and  by  his 
advice  and  aid  Mr.  Houghton,  who  was  now 
by  himself,  became  Mr.  Brown's  tenant  in  a 
brick,  domestic-looking  building  on  the  banks 
of  the  Charles  Eiver.  The  building  had  for- 
merly been  used  by  the  city  of  Cambridge  as 
a  house  for  the  town  poor,  and  stood  almost 
in  the  open  country.  Mr.  Brown  had  bought 


HENKY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  65 

the  estate,  and  the  building,  after  being  re- 
modeled, was  occupied  by  the  firm  of  H.  0. 
Houghton  &  Company.  Mr.  Houghton  and 
Mr.  Brown  were  desirous  of  giving  the  new 
press  a  significant  name,  and  tried  various  ex- 
periments, till  Mr.  Brown  said  one  day :  "  This 
press  stands  by  the  side  of  the  Charles  Kiver ; 
why  not  call  it '  The  Kiverside  Press '  ?  "  and 
this  most  natural  name  was  then  given  it,  so 
that  now  the  term  Riverside  has  come  to  cover 
a  thickly  populated  district,  and  to  be  applied 
to  various  neighboring  industries. 

It  was  in  1852  that  the  firm  of  H.  0. 
Houghton  &  Company  was  established  at  the 
Riverside  Press,1  and  on  September  12,  1854, 
Mr.  Houghton  was  married  to  Miss  Nanna 
W.  Manning,  who  was  at  the  time  a  teacher 
in  the  Cambridge  High  School.  The  first 
house  occupied  by  the  couple  was  in  Ellery 
Street,  but  shortly  after,  by  the  aid  and  with 
the  wise  advice  of  Miss  Mary  Harris,  he  built 

1  An  old  payroll  book  shows  for  the  first  week,  ending 
January  18, 1849,  a  list  of  sixteen  names,  aggregating  $74. 
The  increase  of  the  business  is  seen  by  that  for  April  10, 
1852,  when  there  were  fifty  names  and  a  total  of  $575.22. 


66  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

the  house  on  Main  Street,  now  Massachusetts 
Avenue,  still  the  home  of  the  family.  He 
added  an  apartment  easy  of  access  on  the 
ground-floor  for  the  use  of  his  parents,  who 
came  to  live  with  him.  His  mother  died  in 
1858 ;  and  his  father  afterward  went  to  the 
home  of  William  Houghton,  the  oldest  of  the 
sons,  in  Nunda,  where  he  died. 

There  was  a  period,  therefore,  of  about  ten 
years  when  Mr.  Houghton  may  be  said  to 
have  been  establishing  himself.  He  was  mar- 
ried, had  a  house  of  his  own,  and  saw  a  young 
family  growing  up  about  him.  He  was  in  full 
control  of  a  printing-office  ;  for  though  he  did 
business  under  the  firm  name  of  H.  0.  Hough- 
ton  &  Company,  the  company  was  a  friend 
who  had  embarked  money  in  the  enterprise 
and  assumed  no  share  in  the  management. 
He  was  in  close  relation  with  the  Harvard 
Street  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  where  he 
was  Superintendent  of  the  Sunday-school,1  and 

1  He  was  Superintendent  from  1850  to  the  end  of  1853. 
For  several  years  after  that  he  resumed  his  connection  with 
the  church  in  Boston,  but  returned  to  the  Harvard  Street 
church  in  1862,  was  then  made  a  trustee,  and  resumed  his 
office  of  Superintendent  in  1864,  retaining  it  till  his  death.  . 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  67 

he  was  taking  his  part  in  the  government  of 
the  young  city  of  Cambridge  as  a  member  of 
the  school  committee,  as  well  afterward  as  a 
member  of  the  Common  Council  and  of  the 
Board  of  Aldermen. 

There  were  two  connections  which  he  main- 
tained in  business  that  were  of  great  impor- 
tance to  him.  The  firm  of  Little,  Brown  & 
Company,  besides  being  very  large  law  pub- 
lishers, took  the  lead  in  enterprises  calling  for 
a  good  deal  of  capital.  They  planned  and 
carried  out  a  series  of  dignified  historical  and 
political  works,  of  the  kind  to  which  we  eas- 
ily give  the  name  of  monumental,  like  the 
writings  of  John  Adams  and  John  Quincy 
Adams,  and  the  speeches  of  Daniel  Webster. 
They  undertook  also  that  long  series  of  Brit- 
ish Poets  and  British  Essayists,  neat,  sober 
volumes  in  black  cloth,  each  preceded  by  a 
steel-plate  portrait  of  the  author.  A  few  of 
the  volumes  of  the  British  Poets,  those  least 
in  demand,  like  the  poems  of  Bishop  Heber, 
were  simply  small  editions  from  English  sheets 
bound  uniform  with  the  others ;  most  of  the 
books,  however,  were  passed  under  the  critical 


68  HENKT  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

supervision  of  Professor  Francis  J.  Child,  with 
occasionally  the  aid  of  Mr.  C.  E.  Norton 
and  Mr.  James  Russell  Lowell,  and  reset  and 
stereotyped  here.  Much  of  this  mechanical 
work  fell  to  Mr.  Houghton,  and  he  was 
brought  thus  into  friendly  relations  with  the 
editors,  and  into  very  close  relations  with  Mr. 
Brown,  whom  he  always  looked  upon  as  the 
most  far-sighted  and  courageous  publisher 
whom  he  had  known,  —  a  man  who  saw  his 
business  in  a  large  way,  and  yet  had  the 
resolution  and  decision  to  keep  clear  of  specu- 
lative ventures.  "Mr.  Houghton,"  the  elder 
man  once  said  to  him  impressively,  "never 
hesitate  to  stop  any  enterprise  which  is  not 
paying :  if  you  see  a  part  of  your  business 
to  be  unprofitable,  cut  it  off,  no  matter  how 
much  it  hurts ; "  and  Mr.  Houghton  laid  the 
advice  to  heart. 

The  other  house  with  which  the  young 
printer  made  an  alliance  was  the  firm  of  Tick- 
nor  &  Fields,  which  was  rapidly  acquiring  a 
list  of  books  in  general  literature,  and  mak- 
ing friends  amongst  English  and  American 
authors,  especially  of  poetry  and  belles-lettres 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  69 

generally.  If  the  volumes  of  the  British 
Poets  stood  for  substantial  standard  literature, 
the  decorous  brown-clad  volumes  with  blind 
side-stamps  will  even  now  bring  up  delight- 
ful associations  in  the  minds  of  readers  who 
were  young  men  and  women  in  the  decade  of 
1850-1860.  When,  a  few  years  ago,  the  old 
firm  name  of  Ticknor  &  Company  was  revived 
for  a  short  time,  Mr.  Howells,  with  the  en- 
thusiasm of  reminiscence,  urged  the  new  firm 
to  hunt  up  the  old-fashioned  die,  get  some 
brown  cloth  made  of  the  pattern  of  the  old, 
and  burst  forth  in  a  sort  of  resurrection  suit, 
with  the  expectation  of  creating  a  genuine 
furore  among  book-lovers. 

As  Mr.  Brown  in  the  one  house  had  been 
the  one  to  take  the  initiative,  so  Mr.  Fields, 
with  his  love  of  literature,  gave  direction  to 
the  list  of  the  other ;  and,  as  good  books  de- 
mand good  printing,  he  had  very  frequent 
recourse  to  Mr.  Houghton.  But  the  two  men 
were  nearer  of  an  age  than  were  Mr.  Hough- 
ton  and  Mr.  Brown,  so  that  the  relations  were 
of  a  different  sort ;  and  Mr.  Houghton  was  so 
confident  of  himself  in  his  own  art  that  he 


70  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

took  the  position  of  an  adviser  in  mechanical 
matters,  and  not  always  that  of  a  mere  execu- 
tive agent  of  the  publisher.  Once  he  invited 
Mr.  Fields  to  look  at  a  shelf  of  books  in  his 
counting-room.  He  had  collected  a  number 
of  the  recent  publications  of  Ticknor  &  Fields, 
and  ranged  them  with  special  reference  to 
showing  the  irrational  irregularity  of  sizes  of 
paper  used  in  the  manufacture. 

For  Mr.  Houghton  was  devoting  himself 
with  the  greatest  ardor,  not  simply  to  the 
development  of  his  business,  but  to  the  im- 
provement of  his  art,  and  in  doing  this  he  was 
governed  by  a  few  broad,  fundamental  princi- 
ples. I  have  spoken  already  of  the  clearness 
with  which  he  saw  the  correct  proportions  of 
a  page,  and  how  pleased  he  was  at  finding 
that  what  his  eye  saw  to  be  correct,  a  canon 
of  architectural  proportions  confirmed.  By  a 
similar  direct  judgment,  he  early  and  always 
protested  against  the  use  of  sizes  of  paper 
except  the  old,  accepted  dimensions,  and  re- 
garded any  departure  from  these  as  a  futile 
attempt  to  secure  individuality.  He  tried  to 
enforce  system  and  regularity  in  this  respect 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  71 

into  the  books  which  he  made  for  his  custom- 
ers ;  and  when  he  had  the  power  to  order,  as 
he  did  later  in  his  own  publishing  house,  the 
canon  of  regularity  in  paper  was  one  which 
he  would  not  have  infringed. 

He  carried  the  underlying  principle  of 
beauty  through  simplicity  into  his  typography. 
He  at  once  discarded  the  customary  typo- 
graphic ornaments,  though  he  pleased  himself 
later  when  he  was  in  England  with  having 
devices  and  initial  letters  designed  expressly 
for  him  by  a  daughter  of  one  of  his  printing 
friends,  Mr.  Whittingham.  He  discarded  also 
the  common  expedients  for  securing  variety 
by  means  of  change  in  type ;  his  aim  was,  not 
to  startle,  not  to  distract,  but  to  make  his  type 
so  clear,  simple,  and  orderly  that  it  should  do 
its  plain  work  of  expressing  language  with  the 
least  ostentation.  In  all  this  he  was  helped 
by  the  constant  handling  of  the  best  English 
books  of  the  day,  and  he  studied  the  work 
of  Aldus,  Bodoni,  Baskerville,  Pickering,  and 
other  master  printers ;  but  it  is  to  be  noted  that 
he  went  straight  to  the  mark  from  the  start,  and 
had  apparently  no  false  notions  to  get  rid  of. 


72  HENRY  OSCAK  HOUGHTON 

It  is  not  easy  for  the  book-lover  of  to-day, 
accustomed  to  seeing  well-printed  books,  to 
appreciate  the  important  contribution  which 
Mr.  Houghton  made  to  the  art  of  book-mak- 
ing in  America.  There  were  other  good 
printers  contemporaneous  with  him,  such  men, 
for  example,  as  Mr.  Alvord  and  Mr.  Trow,  but 
no  one  seems  to  have  emphasized  with  such 
distinction  the  few  but  fundamental  laws  of 
good  printing,  and  he  had,  as  we  have  shown, 
the  occasion  at  his  hand  in  his  close  associa- 
tion with  two  important  publishers  of  the  best 
literature.  After  all,  the  force  which  lay  be- 
hind this  manifestation  of  an  art  was  the  char- 
acter of  the  man  himself.  He  knew  a  good 
thing  in  printing,  and  he  was  not  the  man  to 
give  up  his  knowledge  to  the  opinion  of  any 
one  else.  He  was  so  much  more  positive 
than  most  of  his  customers,  and  he  impressed 
his  own  convictions  on  them  so  determinedly, 
that  he  had  his  own  way;  his  tenacity  and 
his  energy  made  him  a  most  effective  reformer 
in  printing  when  he  was  engaged  strictly  in 
minding  his  own  business. 

His  management  of  the  printing-office  was 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  73 

marked  by  an  unwearying  attention  to  every 
detail,  and,  hard  as  he  made  his  men  work,  he 
worked  harder  than  any.  On  one  occasion  he 
found  himself  drawn  into  contention  with  his 
compositors.  They  made  demands  which  he 
thought  were  unreasonable,  and  they  seemed 
to  have  the  advantage  of  him  in  the  situation. 
He  quietly  went  about  amongst  some  teach- 
ers and  other  well-educated  young  women  in 
Cambridge,  persuaded  them  to  put  themselves 
under  his  tuition,  privately  trained  them  to 
set  type,  and,  when  the  battle  seemed  to  have 
gone  against  him,  suddenly  appeared  with  his 
reinforcements,  established  them  in  his  com- 
posing-room, and  from  that  day  to  the  end 
not  only  had  no  further  strike,  but  gave  to 
the  entire  composing-room  a  character  for  in- 
dustry, skill,  and  courtesy.  He  was  one  of 
the  first  to  demonstrate  on  a  considerable  scale 
the  practicability  of  the  employment  of  women 
in  this  capacity ;  and  it  was  characteristic  of 
him  that  he  should  draw  to  himself  the  best- 
educated  and  best-mannered  girls,  and  not  be 
aiming  for  the  lowest-priced.  He  long  had  a 
proof-reader,  Miss  Harris,  on  whose  services 
he  set  a  very  high  value. 


THE  reputation  which  Mr.  Houghton  made, 
not  only  as  a  printer  of  singularly  good  taste, 
but  as  a  prompt  man  of  business,  attracted 
to  him  other  publishers  than  those  already 
named,  and  made  his  office  the  favorite  one 
of  the  small  class  of  connoisseurs  in  printing 
who  wished  to  secure  a  specially  choice  result 
in  private  publishing.  One  of  the  most  in- 
teresting connections  which  Riverside  made, 
and  fruitful  in  the  end,  was  with  Mr.  0.  W. 
Wight,  a  scholarly  gentleman,  who  was  also 
a  man  of  means,  and  adopted  a  mode  of  grati- 
fying his  tastes,  and  at  the  same  time  making 
his  money  earn  interest,  which  I  have  often 
wondered  is  not  more  commonly  followed. 
He  was  a  lover  of  Montaigne,  Pascal,  Madame 
de  Stael,  and  Voltaire,  and  he  edited,  I  believe 
in  part  translated,  writings  of  these  authors, 
and  resorted  to  Mr.  Houghton  as  a  printer 
who  could  make  his  books  as  beautiful  in 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  75 

page  as  he  could  desire.  Mr.  Houghton  made 
the  stereotype  plates,  as  he  might  have  made 
them  for  any  author,  and  then  Mr.  Wight 
farmed  them  out  to  this  or  that  publisher, 
who  bore  the  cost  of  printing,  binding,  and 
selling,  and  paid  Mr.  Wight  a  royalty  for  the 
use  of  the  plates.  I  do  not  attempt  to  name 
all  the  books  which  Mr.  Wight  made  in  this 
way,  but  his  last,  most  considerable  venture 
was  a  new  edition  of  Dickens,  which  long  re- 
mained as  the  best  example  of  Mr.  Houghton's 
art,  and  no  one  can  now  come  upon  an  early 
impression  of  the  Household  Edition  of  Dick- 
ens, as  it  was  called,  without  being  delighted 
with  the  classic  beauty  of  the  page.  It  was 
for  this  edition  that  Mr.  Darley  made  a  series 
of  careful  India-ink  drawings,  the  originals  of 
which  have  long  hung  on  the  walls  of  Mr. 
Houghton's  house. 

In  all  these  projects  Mr.  Houghton  took  a 
most  active  part,  lending  his  judgment  and 
skill  in  planning  the  mechanical  treatment, 
and  advising  respecting  the  publication.  He 
was  studying  all  the  while  to  enlarge  the 
circle  of  his  connection  with  publishers,  aware 


76  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

of  the  risk  he  ran  if  he  tied  himself  too  closely 
to  any  one.  Moreover,  his  independence  and 
his  consciousness  of  mastery  in  his  own  art 
made  him  impatient  of  any  relation  which  left 
him  only  the  position  of  agent,  and  he  found 
himself  often  placed,  as  he  thought,  at  a  disad- 
vantage. Not  only  did  his  transactions  with 
Mr.  Wight  bring  him  into  very  close  dealings 
with  publishers,  and  familiarize  him  with  the 
publishing  side  of  book-making,  but  out  of 
the  difficulties  which  arose  in  these  transac- 
tions there  seemed  but  one  way  of  wise  escape, 
and  that  was  into  the  assumption  himself  of 
the  publisher's  function.  He  needed  an  out- 
let for  his  manufacturing  enterprise,  and  he 
felt  increasingly  the  disadvantage  of  stopping 
short  with  the  production  of  a  book.  The 
publication  of  the  Dickens  was  in  itself  a 
serious  affair  in  those  days,  for  it  was  com- 
prised in  a  long  series  of  volumes. 

It  was  under  these  circumstances,  when  his 
mind  was  gravitating  toward  publishing,  that 
his  business  brought  him  into  frequent  inter- 
course with  Mr.  Melancthon  M.  Hurd,  then 
a  partner  in  the  house  of  Sheldon  &  Com- 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  77 

pany.  The  business  of  this  house  was  mainly 
in  school  books,  and  Mr.  Kurd's  taste  and 
interest  were  in  the  direction  of  literature. 
The  friendship  of  the  two  men,  and  their 
common  tastes  in  the  matter  of  books,  easily 
led  to  the  proposal  of  a  partnership  under 
the  firm  name  of  Hurd  &  Houghton.1  They 
reasoned  that  New  York  was  fast  becoming 
the  great  centre  for  the  sale  and  distribution 
of  books,  as  of  other  merchandise,  and  that 
not  only  was  Biverside  already  well  equipped 
for  the  printing  of  books,  but  that  Cambridge 
must  long  be  a  natural  meeting-ground  for 
authors  and  editors.  There  were  long  con- 
ferences in  those  days  before  and  after  the 
inception  of  the  new  firm,  and  Mr.  Houghton 
was  full  of  ardor  in  this  enlargement  of  scope. 
As,  in  the  case  of  printing,  he  did  not  regard 
his  business  merely  as  a  support  and  means 
of  enrichment,  so  now  his  mind  was  given  to 
a  forecast  of  the  great  field  which  lay  before 
him  in  the  business  of  publishing.  He  meant 
emphatically  to  make  good  books,  to  spare  no 
effort  to  make  them  pleasant  to  the  eye  and 

i  The  "  notice  "  of  the  partnership  is  dated  March  1, 1864. 


78  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

the  touch,  —  that  he  was  sure  he  could  do,  — 
and  to  be  sure  that  they  were  wholesome  and 
worth  making  beautiful.  The  new  firm  meant 
to  cultivate  new  authors,  but  the  list  of  books 
with  which  they  began,  books  which  for  the 
most  part  had  grown  out  of  Mr.  Houghton's 
connection  with  Mr.  Wight,  —  Bacon,  Cooper, 
Dickens,  Montaigne,  Macaulay,  and  others,  — 
naturally  opened  the  way  for  that  attention 
to  standard  literature  which  always  since  has 
characterized  the  house.  A  year  after  the  firm 
was  established,  it  was  announcing  a  portly 
library  of  old  divines,  to  be  edited  by  the 
former  University  of  Vermont  scholar,  Pro- 
fessor W.  G.  T.  Shedd,  and  five  volumes  of 
South' s  sermons  was  the  result.  Mr.  Hough- 
ton  also,  from  his  great  familiarity  with  the 
making  of  law  books  and  his  knowledge  of 
the  profitable  nature  of  the  business  as  then 
conducted,  determined  to  make  the  publica- 
tion of  law  books  a  specialty.  He  was  more 
encouraged  to  this  by  the  acquaintance  he  had 
formed  with  law  writers,  and  by  his  intimate 
relations  with  Judge  Bennett.  He  had,  more- 
over, a  natural  proclivity  toward  the  science 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  79 

of  law.     It  appealed  strongly  to  his  robust, 
argumentative  mind. 

I  do  not  know  the  exact  order  of  events, 
but  very  close  to  this  important  step  in  Mr. 
Houghton's  career  was  the  business  engage- 
ment he  made  with  the  house  of  Messrs.  G.  &  C. 
Merriam  of  Springfield,  the  publishers  of  Web- 
ster's Dictionary,  who  were,  I  think,  at  this 
time  ready  to  begin  the  production  of  a  new 
edition  of  that  work.  Mr.  Houghton  knew 
very  well  that,  however  carefully  he  might 
keep  the  firm  of  H.  0.  Houghton  &  Com- 
pany, printers,  distinct  from  that  of  Hurd  & 
Houghton,  publishers,  he  was  running  the  risk 
of  losing  engagements  with  other  publishers 
by  entering  their  domain  himself ;  and  he  was 
too  far-sighted  to  think  that  he  could  at  once 
build  up  a  publishing  house  which  would 
exhaust  the  capacity  of  his  printing  establish- 
ment, so  that  he  looked  upon  this  alliance  with 
G.  &  C.  Merriam  not  only  as  good  in  itself, 
but  as  giving  great  stability  to  his  manufac- 
turing enterprise.  He  was  aware  of  the  fluc- 
tuations which  attended  the  fortunes  of  mis- 
cellaneous publishing,  and  of  the  speculative 


80  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

element  which  inevitably  attached  to  this  busi- 
ness, and  he  valued  highly  this  very  important 
connection.  The  men  on  both  sides  were  ad- 
mirably joined.  They  were  upright,  honor- 
able men,  and  they  were  also  exceedingly  able 
business  men,  unflagging  in  their  attention  to 
details,  fair  in  dealing,  but  as  keen  in  their 
bargains  as  they  were  faithful  to  their  engage- 
ments. A  life-long  friendship  grew  up  among 
them,  which  found  many  opportunities  of  ex- 
pression outside  of  immediate  business  engage- 
ments. Several  years  later  Mr.  0.  M.  Baker 
became  connected  with  the  Springfield  house, 
and  much  of  the  detail  fell  upon  him.  At 
the  time  of  Mr.  Houghton's  death  he  wrote 
these  words,  which  bear  witness  to  the  strong 
human  relations  which  sometimes  are  formed 
within  the  shell  of  business :  — 

"During  the  whole  eighteen  years  of  my 
acquaintance  with  Mr.  Houghton  he  has  al- 
ways impressed  me  as  being  my  friend,  even 
in  the  discussion  of  vexed  questions  where 
our  interests  were  quite  at  variance,  and  I 
never  had  an  interview  with  him  that  did  not 
leave  me  with  a  feeling  of  the  most  profound 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  81 

respect  for  his  manliness.  It  has  been  a 
source  of  much  pleasure  and  satisfaction  to 
me  that  I  have  seemed  to  merit  his  confidence 
and  friendship ;  but  I  could  be  as  nothing  to 
him  in  comparison  with  what  he  has  always 
been  to  me,  and  there  is  no  one  left,  outside 
of  the  members  of  our  firm,  that  I  can  go  to 
with  the  same  familiarity  and  confidence  that 
I  have  so  many  times  gone  to  him." 

The  formation  of  the  new  firm,  and  the 
demands  created  by  the  large  contract  with 
the  Messrs.  Merriam,  called  for  an  increase  of 
facilities  at  Eiverside,  especially  in  the  matter 
of  a  bindery,  and  in  the  spring  of  1864  Mr. 
Houghton  made  his  first  journey  to  Europe. 
His  errand  chiefly  was  to  secure  master  bind- 
ers, and  to  open  the  way  for  securing  the  best 
material  both  in  binding  and  in  types.  Neces- 
sarily he  made  himself  acquainted  at  once 
with  the  wages  paid  to  workmen  in  his  own 
craft,  and,  since  he  was  not  only  a  practical 
printer  but  a  man  of  education,  he  took  a  very 
strong  interest  in  the  economic  and  political 
questions  which  a  comparison  of  the  condi- 
tions in  England  and  in  the  United  States 


82  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

suggested  to  him.  He  had,  as  a  Henry  Clay 
Whig,  accepted  the  doctrine  of  protection 
when  he  was  a  student  in  college,  and  had 
never  seen  any  reason  to  change  his  mind. 
His  experience  in  London  did  much  to  con- 
firm him  in  this  economic  belief,  and  he  used 
often  to  speak  of  the  profound  impression 
made  upon  him  by  the  evidence  which  he 
saw  of  the  almost  hopeless  prospect  of  the 
English  workman  as  compared  with  that  of 
his  American  fellow.  A  few  years  later,  when 
the  question  of  Protection  vs.  Free  Trade  was 
stoutly  debated  by  Hon.  W.  D.  Kelley,  the 
veteran  champion  of  protection  in  Congress, 
one  of  the  workmen  whom  Mr.  Houghton 
secured  at  this  time  wrote  the  following  letter 
to  Mr.  Kelley :  — 

CAMBRIDGE,  MASS.,  May  10,  1872. 

HON.  W.D.  KELLEY,— 

Dear  Sir,  —  A  fellow-workman  having  lent 
me  a  pamphlet  containing  a  speech  deliv- 
ered by  you,  March  16,  1872,  against  free 
trade,  I  take  the  liberty  of  addressing  you,  as 
I  am  interested  in  that  subject.  Sir,  let  us 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  83 

look  at  the  blessings  of  free  trade  where  it 
works  so  well.  I  cannot  do  better  than  take 
my  own  case.  When  in  England  I  always 
had  a  great  desire  to  come  to  this  country, 
not  that  I  expected  to  get  rich,  but  wanted 
to  be  able  to  save  something  for  my  mainte- 
nance in  my  old  age.  In  1857  we  began  to 
save.  In  1864  Mr.  H.  0.  Houghton  was  in 
England,  trying  to  engage  some  compositors, 
printers,  and  book-binders.  I  am  a  book- 
binder, and  applied  to  him  to  see  if  he  would 
pay  our  passage,  —  myself,  wife,  and  two 
children.  He  came  to  Derby  and  I  told 
him  what  I  could  do.  He  agreed  to  advance 
our  passage  money.  We  had  been  saving 
nearly  seven  years ;  had  twenty-four  shillings 
per  week,  which  was  the  best  wages  given.  I 
had  saved  only  £12  10s. 

What  is  the  difference  between  my  life 
there  and  that  which  I  enjoy  here?  Mr. 
Houghton  lent  me  money  to  buy  furniture, 
and  with  the  passage  money  I  was  in  debt  for 
$270.  I  received  $15  per  week  first;  have 
been  advanced  several  times ;  now  I  have  $22 
per  week.  I  paid  the  debt,  have  my  life  in- 


84  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

sured  and  $615  in  the  bank.  This  has  been 
done  in  less  than  eight  years.  You  men- 
tion Hon.  H.  0.  Houghton  speaking  of  the 
compositors  of  England  not  being  able  to  pay 
their  passage ;  there  were  about  twenty  in  the 
same  shop  with  me,  and  not  one  married  man 
better  off  than  myself.  .  .  . 

Eespectfully  yours, 

JAMES  WILSON. 

The  new  firm  of  Hurd  &  Houghton  be- 
gan at  once  to  use  the  term  "  Riverside  "  in 
characterizing  a  series  of  books  they  pro- 
jected, the  Riverside  Classics,  and  the  custom 
grew  of  giving  the  title  to  editions  in  which 
special  care  had  been  taken  to  secure  beauty 
and  dignity  of  form,  but  always  with  a  re- 
serve in  its  use.  Mr.  Houghton,  with  the 
traditions  of  older  printers  before  him,  ob- 
tained from  Miss  Whittingham,  in  London, 
a  monogram  in  which  the  two  H's  of  the 
firm  name  were  linked  together,  and  used  it 
on  the  title-pages  of  books.  He  had  found 
a  crest  of  the  Houghton  family,  but  he  did 
not  like  the  motto,  which  was  somewhat  tru- 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  85 

culent,  and  supplanted  it  with  another,  Tout 
bien  ou  rien,  and  used  this  phrase  on  his  book 
plate,  with  satisfaction  in  its  concise  statement 
of  his  business  creed;  it  was  not  till  about 
1880  that  the  motto  began  to  be  used  delib- 
erately by  the  publishing  firm. 


VI 

MY  own  acquaintance  with  Mr.  Houghton 
—  though  I  had  seen  him  once,  a  few  years 
before,  when  I  consulted  him  about  the 
printing  of  a  college  magazine,  of  which  I 
was  an  editor  —  began  in  the  year  1864, 
upon  occasion  of  the  printing  of  a  life  of 
an  older  brother,  which  I  had  written.  It 
chanced  that  the  plates  of  the  book  were 
made  just  before  Mr.  Houghton  made  his 
connection  with  Mr.  Hurd,  and,  as  I  intended 
publishing  the  book  at  my  own  risk,  I  placed 
it  naturally  with  the  new  firm.  I  had  pre- 
viously appeared  as  the  author  of  two  books 
for  the  young,  and  was  intending  to  occupy 
myself  with  literature.  The  acquaintance, 
begun  during  the  composition  of  the  memoir 
of  my  brother,  which  took  me  frequently  to 
Riverside,  quickly  ripened  into  friendship ; 
and  when  the  new  firm  of  Hurd  &  Houghton 
was  established  I  was  asked  to  be  the  reader 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  87 

of  the  manuscripts  submitted  for  publication, 
and  the  critic  of  such  English  books  as  they 
might  arrange  to  republish.  As  my  home 
was  in  Boston,  I  was  more  frequently  in  Mr. 
Houghton's  company  than  in  Mr.  Kurd's, 
though  my  reports  were  sent  to  the  New 
York  office.  To  be  in  with  the  formation 
of  a  new  publishing  house,  when  it  already 
enjoyed  the  prestige  of  the  foremost  printing 
house  in  the  country,  as  regards  mechanical 
work,  offered  a  pleasurable  excitement  to  a 
young  litterateur,  and  I  took  frequent  occa- 
sion to  walk  out  to  Cambridge  at  the  end  of 
the  day  and  visit  the  Press.  Mr.  Houghton 
then,  as  long  afterward,  found  his  greatest 
recreation  in  riding  or  driving,  and  it  was 
not  long  before  we  fell  into  the  habit  of  tak- 
ing long  drives  together  in  the  late  afternoon, 
supplemented  by  a  weekly  dinner  with  the 
young  family  on  Saturday.  As  my  connec- 
tion with  the  house  became  more  intimate, 
the  intercourse  with  the  head  of  the  house 
increased.  Sometimes  we  rode  together, 
sometimes  we  drove ;  and,  as  years  went  on, 
the  son,  who  has  now  succeeded  his  father, 


88  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

was  stowed  away  in  a  little  seat  in  the  buggy, 
until  one  day  his  father  suddenly  woke  to 
the  fact  that  the  boy  was  growing  up,  and 
stopped  our  conversation  to  enjoin  upon  him 
the  necessity  of  not  repeating  anything  he 
heard  us  saying.  The  rides  and  drives  after 
a  while  diminished,  as  Mr.  Houghton's  own 
family  came  to  be  his  friendly  companions 
and  I  had  my  separate  family  interests ;  but 
the  peregrinatory  conferences  were  resumed 
in  recent  years,  when  we  were  both  living 
in  Cambridge  and  having  the  same  office 
hours  in  Boston.  We  looked  forward  to  the 
spring,  and  to  the  fall  after  the  summer  diver- 
sions, when  we  could  again  walk  out  over  the 
West  Boston  Bridge ;  and  when  the  Harvard 
Bridge  was  built  we  found  a  new  delight  in 
the  sunsets,  which  interrupted  our  talk  as  the 
western  sky  was  brilliant  above  the  noble 
sweep  of  the  Charles  River.  Mr.  Houghton, 
at  the  beginning  of  our  connection,  was  fif- 
teen years  my  senior,  but  the  thirty  years 
which  slipped  away  found  this  breach  clos- 
ing, for  we  had  established  so  many  common 
causes  that  he  came  to  ignore  the  difference 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  89 

in  age  more  even  than  I :  that  is  one  of  the 
privileges  of  the  senior  in  such  associations. 

One  of  the  first  subjects  which  we  dis- 
cussed was  the  natural  one  of  an  organ  of  the 
new  publishing  house.  The  fact  that  such 
slight  experience  as  I  had  enjoyed  in  litera- 
ture was  mainly  in  the  direction  of  writing 
for  the  young  had  something  to  do,  no  doubt, 
with  his  resolution  to  undertake  a  magazine 
for  young  people,  but  he  was  incited  to  it 
also  by  the  opportunity  which  it  afforded  the 
Press.  He  was  ambitious  of  doing  superfine 
work.  It  was  an  era  when  book  illustration 
was  making  very  rapid  advances.  The  Uni- 
versity Press  had  achieved  some  notable  suc- 
cesses, and  Ticknor  &  Fields,  then  the  most 
prominent  publishing  house  in  Boston,  had 
made  a  mark  with  Our  Young  Folks,  an 
illustrated  magazine.  Mr.  Houghton  thought 
he  saw  in  the  publication  of  a  similar  maga- 
zine an  opportunity  to  show  what  he  could  do 
in  good  printing,  and  he  was  besides  genu- 
inely interested  in  the  organization  of  sound 
literature  for  the  young.  He  saw  how  largely 
English  juvenile  books  filled  the  bookstores, 


90  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

and  he  had  a  hearty  and  honest  ambition  to 
supersede  them  with  books  instinct  with 
American  life.  He  may  have  overstated  the 
case,  for  he  was  impatient  of  nice  distinctions 
when  he  had  a  point  like  this  to  make,  but 
he  was  sincere  in  his  adherence  to  protective 
principles,  not  only  on  the  ground  of  self- 
interest,  but  on  the  more  substantial  moral 
ground  of  securing  the  greatest  possible  inde- 
pendence for  America,  and  of  fortifying  the 
social  institutions  of  the  country.  He  used 
to  repeat  with  great  earnestness  a  criticism 
which  Agassiz  once  made  to  him  of  a  chil- 
dren's book  in  some  department  of  natural 
history,  in  which  every  illustration  was  drawn 
from  some  object  not  native  to  America,  and 
he  denounced  the  ordinary  English  juvenile 
books  as  assuming  the  unalterable  relation  of 
classes  as  they  exist  in  England.  Such  books, 
he  declared,  were  unwholesome  reading  for 
American  children;  and  he  was  for  driving 
them  out,  partly  by  a  tariff  which  discrimi- 
nated against  them,  and  partly  by  the  produc- 
tion of  native  books  which  should  supplant 
them  as  objects  of  merchandise. 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  91 

A  magazine  seemed  to  offer  the  most  fa- 
miliar mode  of  exploiting  juvenile  literature, 
and  so  he  planned  a  monthly  which  should 
be  generous  in  proportions  and  wholesome  in 
its  character.  There  was  much  discussion 
over  the  name  to  be  given  it,  and,  after  many 
proposals  had  been  made  and  rejected,  we 
fell  back  on  the  most  obvious  one  of  The 
Riverside  Magazine  for  Young  People.  I 
say  most  obvious,  and  yet  the  term  had  not 
then  been  applied  much  further  than  to  the 
Press  itself,  except  in  the  case  already  men- 
tioned of  the  Eiverside  Classics;  but  Mr. 
Houghton  had  at  once  a  pride  in  the  name, 
and  a  jealous  regard  for  its  fame.  He  had, 
when  the  magazine  was  started,  a  little  shyness 
about  its  use ;  but  he  had  already  perceived  its 
value  as  a  trade-mark,  and  he  found  it  a  grate- 
ful substitute  for  the  use  of  his  own  name, 
which  he  did  not  care  to  see  used  superfluously 
in  the  conduct  of  business.  Indeed,  the  im- 
personal character  of  the  word  "  Eiverside '"" 
was  its  great  value  in  his  eyes.  It  stood  for 
something  objective,  gathering  his  ideals,  his 
aims,  his  honorable  ambition,  so  that  he  could 


92  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

enjoy  and  glory  in  it  without  any  shame- 
facedness.  "  Riverside/'  he  once  said  to  me, 
"  is  like  a  diamond  which  I  can  hold  up  be- 
fore my  eye,  and  turn  it  this  way  and  that, 
and  let  the  light  fall  on  it,  and  see  it  sparkle." 
In  this  saying  he  unconsciously  disclosed  the 
secret  of  his  power.  He  grew  prosperous  in 
the  conduct  of  his  business,  but  the  prosperity 
fell  to  him  because  he  was  seeking  something 
higher.  He  was  building  an  institution ;  he 
was  creating  something  which  should  have  an 
organic  life  of  its  own,  and  the  whole  stream 
of  his  energy  passed  into  this  external  crea- 
tion. He  projected  himself  into  it,  and  never 
withdrew  his  hand,  but  he  thought  of  it  as  an 
artist  thinks  of  the  picture  he  paints,  the  poet 
of  the  poem  he  writes. 

As  I  have  intimated,  the  secret  of  Mr. 
Houghton's  power  in  business  lay  in  the  re- 
lation which  he  bore  to  his  work :  he  was  not 
thinking  of  himself  and  his  own  aggrandize- 
ment, —  he  was  thinking  of  the  institution  he 
was  creating,  and  by  a  paradox,  though  he 
threw  himself  heart  and  soul  into  the  en- 
terprise, he  effaced  himself  to  a  remarkable 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  93 

degree.  It  was  impossible  that  so  positive,  so 
vigorous  a  personality  should  not  be  conspicu- 
ous in  the  business,  and  yet  he  shaped  his 
industry  with  distinct  reference  to  the  growth 
of  an  organism.  He  was  by  nature  and  tem- 
perament a  leader,  and  was  impatient  of  any- 
thing like  divided  authority,  but  he  was 
equally  aware  of  the  need  of  an  order  with 
clearly  defined  responsibility.  In  arranging 
his  business,  therefore,  even  when  it  was  small 
and  he  carried  all  the  details  in  his  head,  he 
insisted  upon  such  a  system  of  reports  as 
should  almost  imitate  the  methods  of  an  army. 
"  If  I  tell  a  boy  to  hang  up  my  overcoat,  I 
expect  him  to  come  back  and  tell  me  he  has 
done  it,"  he  would  say,  and  his  memory  for 
details  was  extraordinary.  An  error,  espe- 
cially one  arising  from  carelessness,  committed 
by  one  of  his  young  men,  might  have  been 
forgotten  in  the  course  of  time  by  the  one 
who  committed  it,  but  Mr.  Houghton  never 
forgot  it,  and  never  allowed  the  young  man 
to  forget  it.  Abstractly  considered,  there  was 
something  comically  terrible  in  this  supervis- 
ing memory,  but  in  reality  many  a  one,  though 


94  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

withdrawing  as  far  as  he  could  into  some 
recess  of  exculpatory  consciousness  when  he 
saw  the  f amiliar  reminiscence  making  for  him, 
was  rendered  distinctly  less  capable  of  repeat- 
ing his  blunder,  or  making  another  like  it. 

As  the  range  of  the  business  increased, 
Mr.  Houghton  continued  the  system  by  which 
every  operation  came  regularly  under  his  eye. 
At  first  not  a  letter  was  written  or  a  bill  made 
out  that  did  not  pass  before  him  for  inspec- 
tion before  it  was  sent  out,  and  when  this 
minuteness  of  oversight  became  physically 
impossible,  he  continued  to  have  a  daily  re- 
port of  the  correspondence  made  to  him  with 
a  memorandum  of  the  contents  and  the  names 
of  the  persons  to  whom  the  several  letters 
were  assigned,  and  it  was  a  familiar  sight  to 
see  him  going  from  desk  to  desk  with  a  strip 
of  yellow  paper  containing  these  memoranda, 
and  acquainting  himself  with  the  condition  of 
affairs.  In  the  complexity  of  a  great  printing 
and  publishing  house  there  are  multitudinous 
details,  and  the  chance  of  error  in  some  par- 
ticular which  shall  confuse  the  result  is  very 
great.  It  was  partly  the  necessity  of  meet- 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  95 

ing  this  condition,  partly  a  native  passion  for 
thoroughness,  which  made  Mr.  Houghton  ex- 
traordinarily alert  and  vigilant.  "  Follow  it 
up"  was  his  watchword,  and  his  persistence 
in  getting  to  the  bottom  of  every  difficulty, 
in  fixing  the  responsibility  of  a  mistake,  was 
unflagging,  his  memory  for  derelictions  most 
tenacious.  The  vigor  of  this  discipline  was 
very  great  and  many  chafed  under  it,  but  it 
was  never  relaxed,  and  no  one  was  more  com- 
pletely subject  to  it  than  Mr.  Houghton  him- 
self. It  led  him  to  the  printing-office  often 
early  in  the  morning,  before  his  men  had 
arrived,  and  late  in  the  evening  again,  to  see 
that  all  was  safe  for  the  night.  If  he  made 
rules,  he  was  strenuous  in  enforcing  them  on 
himself,  but  he  did  not  make  many  rules  j 
he  was  not  a  martinet  in  discipline :  he  de- 
manded obedience  to  the  great  laws  of  order, 
accuracy,  thoroughness  in  all  that  was  under- 
taken, and  he  aimed  at  simplicity  rather  than 
complexity  of  method. 

Indeed,  he  was  sometimes  a  little  impatient 
of  method,  he  believed  so  much  more  in  the 
man  behind  the  method.  The  most  perfect 


96  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

method  he  knew  would  never  execute  itself ; 
and  when  an  elaborate  plan  was  outlined,  he 
spent  little  criticism  on  the  plan,  but  wished 
to  know  at  once  who  was  to  carry  it  out. 
Hence  his  attack,  for  failure  in  any  enterprise, 
was  directed  upon  the  person  who  had  failed, 
and  few  there  were  who  escaped  being  hauled 
over  the  coals,  as  the  expressive  phrase  is. 
The  coals  were  rarely  allowed  to  burn  into 
dead  ashes ;  they  were  fed  by  many  occasions, 
and  the  hauling  was  performed  with  an  energy 
which  kept  the  hand  well  in  practice.  Mr. 
Houghton  sometimes  lost  his  temper  in  this 
exercise,  but  usually  he  drew  back  from  the 
edge,  and  the  person  who  was  a  disinterested 
bystander  could  often  extract  a  vast  deal  of 
entertainment  out  of  the  racy  speech  which 
enlivened  the  reproof.  Mr.  Houghton's  good 
sense  of  humor  was  his  safeguard  at  such  times, 
and  his  f  elicitous  comparisons,  his  shrewd  epi- 
thets, his  remote  anecdotes,  all  tempered  the 
severity  of  his  judgments.  He  showed,  more- 
over, not  infrequently,  a  singular  faculty  for 
conveying  his  meaning  by  the  most  casual 
and  indirect  speech,  which  was  curiously  incon- 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  97 

sistent  with  the  vigor  of  his  direct  attack.  I 
remember  one  of  his  associates  coming  out  of 
his  room  one  day  and  saying :  "  Well,  I  have 
been  talking  with  Mr.  Houghton  for  half  an 
hour,  and  I  know  just  what  he  thinks,  but 
I  '11  be  blessed  if  he  has  said  a  word  which 
could  be  taken  as  an  explicit  expression  of 
his  opinion." 

It  is  a  proper  comment  on  this  statement 
of  Mr.  Houghton's  manner  toward  his  associ- 
ates and  employees  that  he  kept  by  him  year 
after  year  the  same  persons.  They  were  often 
sorely  vexed,  —  no  chastisement  for  the  pres- 
ent seemeth  joyous,  but  rather  grievous,  — 
yet  it  was  rare  that  one  of  them  deliberately 
withdrew  from  his  post.  There  were  two  or 
three  reasons  for  this :  the  person  at  fault  felt 
the  justice  of  reproof;  there  was  a  positive 
esprit  de  corps;  discipline,  however  severe, 
is  apt  to  have  something  of  a  tonic  virtue 
in  it ;  but  above  all,  I  think  there  was  a  gen- 
uine recognition  of  the  inherent  justice  and 
generosity  of  Mr.  Houghton's  nature,  and  an 
assurance  that  there  was  nothing  personal 
in  the  retribution  which  he  visited  upon  the 


98  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

delinquent.  Mr.  Houghton  used  to  say,  ear- 
nestly, that  he  never  discharged  a  clerk  and 
never  would.  I  used  to  think,  sometimes, 
that  there  was  not  much  to  choose  between  an 
abrupt  dismissal  and  a  slow  freezing  out ;  but 
there  was  this  marked  difference,  that  the 
ordeal  to  which  one  was  subjected  might,  and 
sometimes  did,  result  in  a  distinct  induration 
of  the  temper,  so  that  a  very  effective  work- 
man was  the  result,  and  every  one  felt  con- 
fidence that  he  would  not  be  the  victim  of 
arbitrary  action,  or  suffer  permanently  from 
an  impulse  of  his  employer. 

It  was  a  characteristic  saying  of  Mr.  Hough- 
ton  that  when  the  Press  was  crowded  with 
work,  he  busied  himself  most  with  seeking 
new  work.  He  was  forearmed  against  the 
danger  of  over-confidence,  and  he  knew  that 
every  harvest  meant  a  time  of  sowing  long 
before.  But  he  was,  above  all,  unceasingly 
mindful  of  the  need  of  keeping  the  Press 
occupied.  As  a  man  of  business,  he  knew 
the  importance  of  making  his  machinery  earn 
money  uninterruptedly ;  as  a  captain  of  indus- 
try, he  never  forgot  the  company  he  had  mus- 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  99 

tered ;  that  work  should  be  slack  was  a  mis- 
fortune, but  that  thereby  men  should  be 
thrown  out  of  employment  was  a  disaster,  and 
he  strained  every  nerve  in  dull  times  to  find 
work  with  which  to  keep  his  men  along,  even 
though  he  had  to  take  it  at  prices  which 
yielded  him  little  or  no  profit. 

This  solidarity  of  the  Press,  so  that  Mr. 
Houghton  lived  to  see  the  grandchildren  of 
some  of  his  first  workmen  employed  side  by 
side  with  their  grandparents,  was  further 
illustrated  by  one  or  two  measures  which  he 
took  for  confirming  the  close  relation  he  held 
with  his  workmen.  He  pondered  long  the  ex- 
pediency of  making  his  growing  business  one 
of  cooperation  formally,  and  went  so  far  at 
one  time  as  to  have  papers  drawn  up  for  in- 
corporation, providing  for  a  pecuniary  interest 
of  all  engaged  in  the  business.  But  he  was 
not  a  theorist :  he  was  a  business  man  with  an 
idealistic  tendency,  and  he  had  a  stable  mind 
which  guarded  him  against  a  too  experimen- 
tal habit.  Moreover,  he  could  not  help  seeing 
that  his  own  temperament  would  make  it  dif- 
ficult for  him  to  enter  into  engagements  which 


100  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

might  abridge  his  instinctive  governing  power; 
and  finally,  when  the  matter  assumed  a  tenta- 
tive shape,  he  did  what  a  wise  man  will  under 
such  circumstances,  —  he  heeded  the  voice  of 
his  wife,  who  threw  the  whole  weight  of  her 
judgment  in  the  opposite  scale.  But,  though 
he  did  not  change  a  partnership  into  a  cor- 
poration, he  could  not  rest  content  until  he 
had  devised  some  means  by  which  he  could 
bring  every  one  in  the  Press  into  possible  in- 
terest in  the  business,  and  the  shape  which  his 
plan  took  was  that  of  a  savings  department, 
by  the  terms  of  which  any  person  employed 
could  deposit  savings  and  receive  a  good  rate 
of  interest,  and,  upon  every  even  hundred  dol- 
lars deposited,  there  might  be  at  the  end  of 
the  year  a  dividend  if  the  business  prospered, 
but  a  limit  was  set  to  the  amount  of  this  divi- 
dend. It  was  not  cooperation  in  the  technical 
sense  of  the  term ;  it  was  not  profit-sharing  as 
a  basis  of  business  management ;  but  it  was  an 
experiment  in  the  direction  of  a  closer  interde- 
pendence of  employer  and  employed,  a  rough- 
and-ready  device  for  getting  over  some  of 
the  disadvantages  of  the  wage-system  without 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  101 

loosening  the  control  of  the  business  by  those 
who  organized  it,  and  had  to  bear  the  re- 
sponsibility of  successful  conduct  and  the  risk 
of  adversity. 

One  of  the  few  men  now  employed  at  River- 
side, of  the  group  that  came  over  in  1864,  is 
Mr.  James  Wilson,  of  the  bindery,  whose  let- 
ter to  Mr.  Kelley  has  already  been  printed. 
I  have  asked  him  to  jot  down  some  of  his 
recollections  and  impressions,  and  he  writes 
in  part  as  follows :  — 

"  One  of  the  things  I  noticed  about  Mr. 
Houghton  was  his  attention  to  business:  he 
was  at  the  place  early  in  the  morning  very 
often  before  we  were,  and  often  after  we  left 
at  night.  One  Saturday  night  I  was  gilding 
some  books  that  were  wanted ;  it  was  eleven 
o'clock,  and  I  was  alone.  He  came  into  the 
old  back  room  and  said :  <  Well,  Mr.  Wilson, 
I  am  sorry  to  see  you  at  work,  as  I  do  like  a 
man  to  have  his  Saturday  night  to  himself.' 
I  was  the  more  struck  with  it  because  he  had 
been  working  in  the  counting-room  himself 
alone,  and  only  seemed  to  think  of  me. 

"There  was  one  trait  in  Mr.  Houghton's 


102  HENKY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

character  which  will  always  stand  out  in  the 
memory  of  his  early  employees ;  that  is  the 
way  he  had  of  going  to  the  men  while  they 
were  at  work,  and  saying  a  few  encouraging 
words  to  each  one.  This  caused  a  mutual 
feeling  of  goodwill  to  exist  between  the  em- 
ployer and  employees,  so  that  all  felt  a  per- 
sonal interest  in  the  welfare  of  the  place. 
This  acknowledgment  of  the  employees  was 
not  confined  to  the  Kiverside  Press,  but  he 
would  always  have  a  kind  word  wherever  he 
met  you. 

"  There  was  another  good  trait  about  Mr. 
Houghton :  if  any  of  the  workpeople  were 
away  sick,  he  would  soon  miss  them,  and  he 
would  make  it  his  business  to  inquire  about 
them,  and  frequently  go  to  see  them.  By 
such  acts  as  these  he  wound  himself  into  the 
hearts  of  the  workpeople  in  a  way  that  few 
men  have  the  power  of  doing." 

Mr.  Wilson  speaks  also,  in  his  notes,  of  a 
scheme  which  Mr.  Houghton  had  at  one  time 
of  building  houses  in  the  immediate  vicinity 
of  the  Press  for  the  use  of  the  workpeople. 
He  carried  out  his  design  to  a  slight  extent 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  103 

by  taking  occasion,  when  enlarging  the  build- 
ing, to  remove  some  wooden  houses  which 
stood  in  the  way,  making  a  court,  to  which  he 
gave  the  name  of  Daye  Court,  from  the  first 
printer  in  Cambridge;  but  he  never  carried 
the  design  very  far,  partly,  I  think,  because 
he  required  at  that  time  all  his  capital  for  his 
business,  partly  because  he  had  strong  convic- 
tions of  the  unwisdom  of  segregating  the 
people.  He  visited  with  interest  such  estab- 
lishments as  that  of  Mame  at  Tours,  and 
spoke  appreciatively  of  the  villages  which  had 
grown  up  about  great  printing-offices;  but 
he  was  emphatic  in  belief  that  in  our  Ameri- 
can life  every  family  should  have  its  own  vol- 
untary place  in  the  general  community,  and 
take  part  in  church,  school,  and  politics  quite 
independently  of  industrial  relations. 

For  one  illustration  of  Mr.  Houghton's  in- 
terest in  workingmen  in  connection  with  social 
order  I  am  indebted  to  Hon.  Carroll  D.  Wright. 
The  time  referred  to  was  long  subsequent  to 
that  of  which  I  have  been  writing,  but  the 
incident  has  its  value  in  this  place.  "  About 
1882,"  says  Colonel  Wright,  "  Mr.  Houghton 


104  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

submitted  to  me  a  proposition  which  I  have 
always  felt  more  clearly  disclosed  the  breadth 
of  the  man's  mind  than  would  his  regular 
business  operations.  He  informed  me  that  he 
had  for  some  years  had  in  mind  the  advisa- 
bility of  publishing  a  periodical  weekly  for  the 
benefit  of  wage-earners.  He  wished  to  have 
the  periodical  first-class  in  every  respect,  —  as 
well  gotten  up,  as  thoroughly  arranged,  and 
as  well  printed,  as  the  best  illustrated  papers. 
He  wished  it  to  be  of  the  size  of  Harper's 
Weekly,  and  to  contain  interesting  matter  for 
the  employees  of  New  England  especially,  — 
all  industrial  facts,  put  in  an  attractive  way ; 
the  treatment  of  current  questions  on  a  broad 
and  non-partisan  basis ;  the  discussion  of  ques- 
tions that  would  interest  organized  and  un- 
organized labor ;  information  as  to  inventions, 
—  everything,  in  fact,  that  could  interest  and 
enlighten  the  men  and  women  who  are  em- 
ployed in  great  manufacturing  works.  He 
wished  to  have  the  journal  illustrated  in  the 
best  way.  His  idea  was  to  furnish  persons, 
at  their  address,  by  mail,  copies  of  the  pub- 
lication, first  asking  the  proprietors  of  works 


HENRY  OSCAK  HOUGHTON  105 

to  submit  a  reasonable  list  of  persons  to  whom 
it  should  be  sent  free  for  a  while,  or  on  sub- 
scription lists  furnished  by  employers,  who 
would  be  asked  in  the  first  instance  to  pay 
the  subscription  for  the  sake  of  distributing 
healthy  labor  literature  among  their  people. 
Mr.  Houghton  confidently  expected  that  the 
quality  of  the  publication  would  soon  result  in 
actual  cash  subscriptions  to  a  sufficient  extent 
to  pay  all  expenses.  He  knew,  of  course,  that 
such  an  undertaking  would  involve  a  large 
expenditure  of  money,  and  that  it  would  be 
some  time — two  or  three  years  perhaps  —  be- 
fore any  return  could  be  expected  in  the  way 
of  income  for  expenses.  It  was  not  in  his  plan 
to  make  any  money  out  of  the  enterprise,  but 
simply  to  establish  a  high-toned  journal  work- 
ing in  industrial  interests.  To  accomplish  his 
purpose  he  proposed  to  raise  a  guaranty  of 
$100,000,  the  parties  subscribing  to  the  fund 
pledging  themselves  to  pay  in  at  times  such 
sums  as  might  be  necessary  for  the  support 
of  the  scheme,  and  until  it  was  on  a  paying 
basis,  that  is,  paying  expenses ;  and  in  this, 
after  his  own  pledge  of  $10,000,  he  secured 


106  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

other  pledges,  so  that  the  total  amounted  to 
$30,000.  But  Mr.  Houghton  was  too  good  a 
business  man  to  enter  practically  upon  his 
plan  until  the  whole  $100,000,  which  he 
deemed  to  be  necessary,  should  be  pledged. 
It  was  impossible  to  secure  more  than  the 
$30,000. 

"  Mr.  Houghton  very  kindly  proposed  that 
I  take  the  editorial  and  business  management 
of  the  periodical,  —  a  proposition  which  at 
once  enlisted  not  only  my  sympathy,  but  my 
cordial  cooperation.  I  should  have  been  glad 
to  join  in  any  such  plan,  for  I  believe  that, 
if  it  could  have  been  carried  out,  very  great 
good  could  have  been  done  to  all  involved, 
both  employer  and  employee. 

"  In  considering  the  plan  which  I  have  out- 
lined, I  was,  of  course,  thrown  very  much  with 
Mr.  Houghton,  and  I  was  greatly  gratified  to 
see  how  thoroughly  interested  he  was  in  the 
elevation  of  those  who  work  for  wages.  He 
had  the  right  idea,  that  is,  that  the  truest  ele- 
vation can  come  only  from  a  broad  enlighten- 
ment, —  from  instruction,  from  knowledge  of 
conditions;  for  it  was  in  the  plan  to  bring 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  107 

out  not  only  conditions  as  they  exist,  but  in 
comparison  with  other  times  and  countries,  — 
everything,  in  fact,  that  would  give  the  work- 
ingman  a  true  picture  of  industrial  conditions 
and  the  conditions  of  production.  I  believe 
now  that,  could  a  sufficient  number  of  em- 
ployers be  induced  to  become  interested  in 
such  a  plan  as  that  suggested  by  Mr.  Hough- 
ton,  more  practical  good  could  be  done  than 
in  any  other  way.  Of  course,  the  publication 
of  official  documents  furnishes  a  certain  kind 
of  information,  but  not  in  the  way  to  attract 
men  who  are  not  students  of  economic  condi- 
tions. A  popular,  high-toned,  illustrated  labor 
paper,  with  capital  enough  behind  it  to  assure 
its  success  regardless  of  the  subscription  list, 
would  be  an  undertaking  of  the  greatest  value 
and  importance.  Mr.  Houghton  was  far  ahead 
of  his  time." 

Mr.  Wright's  letter  illustrates  the  imagina- 
tive side  of  Mr.  Houghton's  nature.  He  liked 
to  project  a  scheme  of  this  kind,  connected 
with  his  business,  but  reaching  much  beyond 
the  scope  of  a  merely  commercial  enterprise, 
and  the  process  of  persuading  himself  of  its 


108  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

practicability  was  often  accompanied  by  the 
exercise  of  his  persuasive  power  on  others. 
He  was  given  to  thinking  aloud,  as  he  would 
say,  and  his  active  mind  grasped  certain  desir- 
able results,  and  then  busied  itself  in  work- 
ing out  the  means  to  reach  the  end.  Thus  at 
another  time  he  imagined  a  great  clearing- 
house for  publishers  which  should  be  under 
their  own  management  and  bring  certain  im- 
portant functions  of  distribution  into  the  con- 
trol of  the  houses  engaged  in  it,  thus  minim- 
izing the  employment  of  jobbers.  Again,  he 
pondered  long  the  intricate  questions  involved 
in  trade  discounts  and  net  prices.  He  was  not 
one  to  allow  his  theories  too  far  to  govern 
his  business  action  ;  he  drew  back  often  when 
the  time  came  for  putting  his  theories  to  an 
explicit  test.  But  when  he  was  committed  to 
any  plan,  especially  if  it  was  one  he  had  care- 
fully worked  out,  he  had  a  tremendous  resolu- 
tion in  carrying  it  into  execution,  and  in  those 
cases  he  inspired  others  with  great  confidence 
in  him.  Much  of  his  remarkable  success  was 
due  to  a  faith  in  himself,  which  confirmed  the 
faith  of  others. 


VII 

THIS  is  a  sketch  of  Mr.  Houghton,  and  not 
of  the  house  of  which  he  was  so  long  the 
head ;  but  in  order  to  give  the  reader  a  con- 
venient chronological  survey  of  the  develop- 
ment of  the  business,  I  will  set  down  in  a 
paragraph  the  successive  changes  in  the  style 
and  personal  constituency. 

The  firm  of  Hurd  &  Houghton  existed 
under  the  same  name  until  1878,  but  from 
time  to  time  changes  occurred  in  its  person- 
nel. In  1866  Mr.  Houghton' s  brother,  Mr. 
Albert  G.  Houghton,  who  had  formerly  been 
a  merchant  in  Alabama,  was  admitted,  occu- 
pying himself  mainly  with  the  interests  in 
New  York.  Not  long  after  the  establishment 
of  the  Siverside  Magazine,  Mr.  George  H. 
Mifflin,  a  recent  graduate  of  Harvard  College, 
came  into  the  service  of  the  house.  In  1872 
both  he  and  I  became  members  of  the  firm. 
I  retired  after  three  years,  preferring  to  give 


110  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

my  time  more  exclusively  to  literary  pursuits, 
but  have  ever  since  been  identified  with  the 
editorial  department  of  the  business.  Mr. 
Mifflin  is  just  completing  a  quarter  century 
of  membership,  and  is  the  head  of  the  house. 
Failing  health  led  to  the  retirement  of  Mr. 
Albert  G.  Houghton  in  1878  from  active  en- 
gagement ;  and  Mr.  Hurd,  who  for  a  similar 
cause  had  previously  withdrawn  from  close 
attention  to  details  of  business,  also  retired. 
At  the  same  time  the  house  formed  a  com- 
bination with  James  K.  Osgood  &  Company, 
the  successors  to  Ticknor  &  Fields  and  Fields, 
Osgood  &  Company.  Mr.  Osgood  represented 
this  house  in  the  new  firm,  and  the  style  be- 
came Houghton,  Osgood  &  Company.  This 
consolidation  greatly  increased  the  list  of  pub- 
lications of  the  house  through  the  accession 
of  the  names  of  the  great  leaders  of  American 
literature.  The  premises  in  Boston  formerly 
occupied  by  James  R.  Osgood  &  Company 
became  the  headquarters  of  the  publishing 
department,  and  the  books  now  bore  the  im- 
print of  Boston  and  New  York  instead  of 
New  York  and  Cambridge.  The  firm  as  thus 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  111 

constituted  continued  for  two  years,  when  Mr. 
Osgood  retired,  and  the  style  of  the  firm 
became,  in  1880,  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Com- 
pany ;  and,  shortly  after,  the  publishing  head- 
quarters in  Boston  were  removed  to  4  Park 
Street,  and  in  New  York  to  11  East  Seven- 
teenth Street.  Mr.  Lawson  Valentine  became 
a  partner,  and  continued  thus  till  his  death  in 
1889.  In  1884  Mr.  James  D.  Kurd,  a  son  of 
Mr.  Houghton's  former  partner,  was  admitted 
to  the  firm,  but  he  died  in  December,  1887. 
On  the  1st  of  April,  1888,  three  new  partners 
were  admitted,  —  Mr.  James  Murray  Kay, 
who  was  born  in  Glasgow,  Scotland,  but  sub- 
sequently had  large  business  interests  in  New 
Brunswick ;  Mr.  Thurlow  Weed  Barnes ;  and 
Mr.  Henry  0.  Houghton,  Jr.  Since  that  date, 
Mr.  Barnes  has  left  the  business,  and  Mr. 
Oscar  K.  Houghton  and  Mr.  Albert  F.  Hough- 
ton,  sons  of  the  late  Albert  G.  Houghton,  have 
been  admitted  to  the  firm,  and  have  their  resi- 
dence in  New  York. 

In  all  these  various  changes  Mr.  Houghton 
was  the  controlling  force.  After  the  business 
was  concentrated  in  Cambridge  and  Boston, 


112  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

he  gave  up  with  great  reluctance  the  special 
oversight  of  the  Press  and  made  his  head- 
quarters in  Boston.  For  a  long  time,  how- 
ever, he  made  it  his  practice  to  visit  the  Press 
daily,  and  it  was  there  that  his  real  affection 
in  his  work  lay.  I  was  walking  home  with 
him  one  day,  the  spring  before  his  fatal  ill- 
ness, when  he  was  contemplating  his  address 
on  Early  Printing  in  America,  and  he  fell 
on  some  reminiscence  of  his  own  occupation. 
He  half  whimsically  and  yet  with  real  seri- 
ousness was  disposed  to  regret  that  he  had 
allowed  himself  to  be  drawn  from  the  simpli- 
city of  a  printer's  business  into  the  complexity 
of  publishing.  He  sketched  his  career  as  it 
might  have  been,  —  the  perfection  of  all  the 
processes  of  making  books;  the  enlargement 
of  his  premises  to  meet  the  demands  of  his 
business,  and  yet  the  centralization  of  the 
business  and  its  restriction  to  one  great  func- 
tion. It  was  in  a  way  the  passing  mood  of 
a  somewhat  tired  man;  but  I  realized  how 
strong  was  his  passion  for  his  early  vocation, 
and  also  how  his  mind  fastened  on  a  large, 
concrete  expression  of  his  ideals.  He  used 


HENRY  OSCAK  HOUGHTON  113 

in  the  vigor  of  his  days  to  speculate  on  an 
old  age  spent  in  the  country  with  a  toy  print- 
ing-office to  play  with.  He  never  relinquished 
a  close  scrutiny  of  the  style  of  his  books ;  he 
labored  with  type  founders  and  paper  makers 
to  secure  the  results  he  wanted,  and  one  of 
his  most  satisfactory  achievements  was  a  par- 
ticular font  of  type,  which  goes  in  the  Press 
by  the  matter  of  fact  name  of  Number  Thir- 
teen, but  is  coming  to  be  recognized  as  the 
"Houghton"  type.1 

Nevertheless,  it  is  not  likely  that  he  would, 
if  hard  pressed,  have  refused  to  admit  that,  in 
giving  his  mind  more  exclusively  to  publish- 
ing, he  was  following  a  course  clearly  marked 
out  for  him  in  the  expansion  of  his  energies ; 
and,  as  the  publishing  side  of  his  business 
came  to  absorb  more  and  more  the  product  of 
the  Press,  he  identified  the  two  interests  and 
treated  them  as  a  whole.  It  had  always  been 
a  marked  element  in  the  success  of  the  Press 
that  books  there  were  treated,  not  piecemeal, 
but  with  careful  study  of  the  interrelation  of 
the  several  parts;  and  it  was  only  a  more 

1  This  book  is  printed  from  Number  Thirteen. 


114  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

comprehensive  application  of  the  same  prin- 
ciple when  he  perfected  the  organism  of  a 
manufacturing  publishing  house. 

He  often  expressed  the  opinion  that  the 
function  which  discriminated  the  publisher 
from  the  manufacturer  and  the  seller  of 
books  was  that  of  making  books  known,  and, 
as  he  found  it  necessary  to  concentrate  his 
attention  upon  the  general  conduct  of  the 
business,  and  to  give  over  the  details  of  man- 
ufacturing to  others,  he  made  much  of  what 
may  comprehensively  be  termed  "  advertis- 
ing." The  details  of  this  he  intrusted  to 
others,  and  indeed  the  system  followed  was 
scarcely  in  any  sense  his  scheme ;  but  certain 
general  principles  he  insisted  on  with  great 
earnestness,  and,  in  two  or  three  instances, 
worked  out  plans  which  illustrated  his  con- 
ception of  the  most  effective  advertising. 
Newspaper  advertising  he  termed  dress  pa- 
rade, and  he  did  not  greatly  rely  on  it,  for 
he  thought  the  real  work  was  done  when 
knowledge  of  a  book  was  brought  imme- 
diately to  the  attention  of  the  person  who 
might  naturally  be  interested  in  this  particu- 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  115 

lar  book;  and  he  was  constantly  pressing, 
therefore,  the  intelligent  collection  of  lists  of 
names  of  probable  book-buyers,  to  be  classified 
for  use  in  the  forwarding  of  special  circulars 
and  bulletins.  He  devised,  also,  the  system 
by  which  an  author  should  be  advertised, 
especially  when  a  new  book  was  to  appear, 
by  means  of  a  circular  containing  a  woodcut 
portrait,  and  a  well-arranged  statement  of  the 
author's  writings.  Out  of  this  grew  the  Por- 
trait Catalogue,  which  received  the  flattery  of 
imitation  in  different  quarters.  He  believed, 
also,  in  phalanxes  of  books,  and,  recognizing 
the  great  accumulation  of  titles  in  the  firm's 
catalogue,  he  planned  a  series  of  special  cata- 
logues by  subjects,  which  developed  finally 
into  a  carefully  classified  list  of  publications, 
perhaps  the  latest  important  piece  of  work 
organized  by  him  in  his  business. 

It  is  a  further  demonstration  of  this  atti- 
tude toward  his  work,  what  may  be  called  the 
egotistic  as  contrasted  with  the  selfish,  that 
he  was  singularly  indifferent  to  the  element 
of  competition.  He  had  of  course,  in  his 
business  enterprises,  to  measure  strength  with 


116      HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

his  neighbors,  but  he  was  not  greatly  in- 
fluenced by  what  they  did.  For  example,  he 
did  not  study  closely  the  work  of  rival  presses, 
nor  scrutinize  the  lists  of  other  publishers, 
and,  above  all,  he  had  a  very  lofty  sense  of 
comity  between  publishers.  He  never  would 
solicit  an  author  who  had  formed  connections 
with  another  house.  "If  he  chooses  to  ap- 
proach us,"  he  would  say,  "  well  and  good. 
We  are  at  liberty  then  to  treat  with  him. 
But  we  will  not  stir  a  finger  to  get  him  away 
from  the  publisher  who  already  issues  his 
books."  And  he  carried  this  scrupulosity  to 
its  utmost  limits,  though  he  was  aware  that 
efforts  were  constantly  made  to  draw  away 
from  him  the  writers  whose  reputation  he 
had  stimulated.  He  carried  his  favorite  ad- 
vice to  authors,  to  keep  their  books  together, 
so  far  that  more  than  once  he  discouraged 
a  writer  who  was  dissatisfied  with  existing 
arrangements  from  coming  to  him.  He  was 
wont  to  use  a  pretty  strong  term,  "  loyalty," 
of  those  who  held  by  him  in  spite  of  temp- 
tations to  go  after  other  publishers ;  but  he 
recognized  quite  as  strongly  the  reciprocal 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  117 

relations  involved,  and,  once  an  author  was 
"  on  the  list,"  he  would  strain  a  point  before 
he  would  suffer  a  new  book  from  the  same 
hand  to  go  elsewhere,  even  though  it  might 
fall  below  the  standard  previously  set.  And 
here  I  venture  the  assertion  that  in  nothing 
did  Mr.  Houghton  show  more  sincerely  the 
friendly  interest  he  took  in  the  authors  who 
intrusted  their  books  to  him  than  in  the  pa- 
tience and  candor  he  showed  while  the  books 
were  yet  in  manuscript.  He  knew  well  the 
business  principle  involved  in  the  requirement 
that  the  manuscript  should  be  ready  for  the 
printer,  and  that  it  was  no  function  of  a  pub- 
lishing house  to  edit  for  authors  the  books 
it  issued  ;  but  in  many  an  instance,  when  the 
manuscript  offered  was  not  thoroughly  accept- 
able, he  would  deal  with  it  as  a  possible  book, 
and,  by  advice,  encouragement,  and  criticism, 
get  the  work  finally  into  proper  shape.  It 
was  this  temper,  over  and  beyond  the  com- 
mercial spirit,  which  made  him  a  representa- 
tive of  the  best  class  of  publishers.  He  was 
not  in  the  technical  sense  a  literary  critic,  and 
he  was  perhaps  disposed  to  underestimate  the 


118  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

art  of  literature,  but  he  had  a  strong  sense 
of  what  was  enduring,  and  a  very  direct  way 
of  appraising  books.  Especially,  whatever 
appealed  to  the  broad,  common  interest  of 
men,  and  was  helpful  in  its  character,  com- 
mended itself  to  his  judgment. 

It  was  in  keeping  with  the  largeness  of  his 
ideals  in  business  and  his  far-sightedness  that 
he  did  not  require  the  demonstration  of  imme- 
diate success.  If  an  enterprise  commended 
itself  to  him  as  sound,  he  was  willing  to  wait 
for  returns.  There  was,  indeed,  something 
very  attractive  to  him  in  projects  which  were 
based  on  broad,  fundamental  principles,  and 
would  take  time  for  their  execution,  and  these 
projects  were  all  the  more  acceptable  if  they 
took  the  shape  of  modest  beginnings.  He 
felt  his  way  with  experiments,  but  he  was  con- 
stantly seeing  the  probable  development.  He 
had  the  courage  which  comes  from  a  large 
•business  imagination.  At  the  same  time  no 
one  could  be  more  resolute  in  a  demand  for 
the  cold  facts  in  the  history  of  undertakings. 
He  perfected  a  system  of  records  by  which 
he  could  ascertain  the  exact  history  of  every 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  119 

one  of  his  ventures,  and  carried  about  in  his 
pocket  for  frequent  reference  what  he  called 
his  Bankrupt  List  —  a  merciless  showing  of 
the  books  that  were  not  paying.  Great  was 
the  satisfaction  when  one  book  or  another 
would  slowly  emerge  from  the  list  and  take 
its  place  among  those  which  had  paid  for 
themselves. 

Perhaps  the  most  significant  illustration  of 
Mr.  Houghton's  treatment  of  his  business  as 
an  institution  is  to  be  found  in  a  step  which 
he  took  not  long  after  the  formation  of  the 
firm  of  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Company.  He 
established  a  weekly  council,  to  which  he 
gave  the  name,  half  in  jest,  half  to  conceal 
its  importance,  of  "The  Powwow."  To  it  he 
invited  his  partners,  and  those  persons  who 
were  heads  of  departments  in  the  business,  or 
charged  with  special  functions.  He  made  out 
a  formal  order  of  business  and  appointed  a 
secretary,  who  kept  the  records,  which  were 
read  at  each  session.  At  the  meetings  the 
various  enterprises  of  the  house  were  dis- 
cussed, especially  the  new  books  which  were 
recommended  for  publication,  and  action  was 


120  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

taken  which  was  held  to  constitute  the  policy 
of  the  house.  Such  councils  are  no  doubt 
common  enough  in  large  firms  and  corpora- 
tions; but  I  think  it  is  an  unusual  course  for  a 
house  to  invite  subordinates,  who  have  no  di- 
rect pecuniary  interest  in  the  concern,  into  an 
equal  share  in  deliberations  and  votes  which 
definitely  affect  the  conduct  of  the  business. 
Naturally  this  recognition  of  the  interest  of 
subordinates  in  the  welfare  of  the  house  led 
to  a  caution  on  their  part  in  asserting  them- 
selves. There  was  a  mutual  concession  with- 
out any  loss  of  independence ;  and,  though 
friction  might  now  and  then  arise,  the  weekly 
conference,  year  after  year,  of  the  same  men, 
engaged  in  the  same  general  work,  effected 
just  what  Mr.  Houghton  designed,  —  a  soli- 
darity of  mind.  He  saw  that  each  member 
of  "The  Powwow"  was  likely  to  look  at 
every  project  not  only  from  his  personal  point 
of  view,  but  with  the  consideration  suggested 
by  the  function  he  performed  in  the  business, 
so  that  there  would  be  diversity  of  judgment, 
and  every  plan  would  be  subjected  to  a  variety 
of  tests.  He  saw  also  that  the  discussion 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  121 

would  inform  all  the  members  of  what  was 
going  on,  and  lead  to  greater  union  of  action, 
a  matter  of  great  importance  when  the  ten- 
dency of  each  was  to  become  engrossed  in  his 
own  part  of  the  business.  In  the  early  years 
of  "  The  Powwow "  he  not  infrequently  ex- 
pressed to  me  his  doubt  whether  on  the  whole 
it  was  worth  while ;  he  was  more  than  once 
piqued  by  our  criticism  of  measures,  or  ren- 
dered impatient  by  the  expenditure  of  time 
over  plans  when  he  knew  what  was  wanted 
and  only  wished  to  get  it  done.  But,  as  time 
wore  on,  these  expressions  of  doubt  grew  less 
frequent,  and  he  threw  more  weight  into  the 
decisions  of  "  The  Powwow."  As  in  other 
cases,  he  struck  out  in  a  course,  upon  which  he 
had  deliberated,  with  decision  but  with  modera- 
tion, feeling  his  way,  and  perhaps  only  partly 
aware  of  how  much  the  step  meant.  But  it 
is  clear  enough  now  that  he  builded  well,  and 
that  the  power  of  organization  which  he  showed 
at  the  beginning  of  his  career,  when  he  was 
captain  and  a  large  part  of  the  crew,  always 
looked  toward  the  creation  of  an  institution 
so  perfected  in  its  parts,  and  so  self-perpetu- 


122  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

ating,  that  his  final  withdrawal  in  the  full- 
ness of  time  should  not  appear  to  disturb  a 
normal  action.  Mr.  Houghton  died  on  Sun- 
day. The  Tuesday  following  was  a  holiday 
in  the  city ;  on  the  Tuesday  after  that  "  The 
Powwow"  met  as  usual,  and  proceeded  at  once 
with  the  business  of  the  week. 


VIII 

IT  was  a  cardinal  principle  with  Mr. 
Houghton  to  put  all  his  eggs  in  one  basket, 
and  carry  the  basket  himself.  He  had  a 
clause  in  his  early  partnership  papers,  pro- 
hibiting himself  and  his  partners  from  enga- 
ging in  any  other  business  enterprise,  and  for 
his  part  he  asked  no  other  pleasure  or  interest 
than  that  which  grew  out  of  the  varied  and 
constantly  changing  forms  of  his  occupation. 
He  loved  travel,  indeed,  and  most  of  all  to 
take  his  carriage  and  horses  and  drive  with 
his  family  for  days  into  the  country,  visiting 
the  regions  dear  to  him  from  early  associa- 
tions, and  it  was  a  privation  to  him  when  he 
was  finally  forced  to  give  up  his  horseback- 
riding.  He  made  occasional  trips  to  Europe, 
and  he  crossed  the  country  twice  to  Califor- 
nia. Often  he  would  come  home  from  one  of 
his  pleasure  trips  with  great  glee  at  having 
picked  up  on  the  way  a  printing  job. 


124  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

Yet,  with  his  large  ways  of  looking  at  his 
business,  it  was  quite  impossible  that  he  should 
not  concern  himself  with  public  affairs  when 
they  bore  very  direct  relation  to  the  printing 
and  publishing  interest.  He  took  a  very 
vigorous  hand  in  the  discussions  which  went 
on  whenever  a  tariff  bill  was  before  Congress, 
and  in  1870  especially,  in  conjunction  with 
Dr.  Henry  Charles  Lea,  was  conspicuous  in 
the  struggle  which  went  on  over  the  proposed 
admission  of  books  free.  He  maintained  with 
great  earnestness  that  such  a  policy  would  be 
fatal  to  the  publishing  interest.  His  influ- 
ence in  this  direction  was  great.  His  frequent 
visits  to  Washington,  and  his  warm  friendship 
with  Senator  Morrill,  brought  him  into  the 
very  heart  of  the  fight.  But  perhaps  his  most 
notable  service  in  public  matters  was  in  con- 
nection with  the  movement  for  international 
copyright. 

This  movement  was  pushed  energetically 
by  the  authors  of  the  country,  but  the  most 
effective  work  was  done  when  the  publishers 
and  manufacturers  of  books  cooperated  with 
the  authors.  Congress  shared  in  the  custom- 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  125 

ary  slighting  regard  bestowed  by  practical 
people  on  the  literary  class,  and  was  more 
disposed  to  pay  attention  to  the  men  who 
represented  large  industrial  interests.  Of  the 
authors,  Dr.  Edward  Eggleston  was  the  most 
influential  advocate  of  the  measure;  and  of 
the  members  of  Congress,  the  most  steadfast 
was  Senator  Chace  of  Rhode  Island,  who,  how- 
ever, was  obliged  by  illness  to  retire  from 
active  participation  before  the  final  action. 
Mr.  Houghton  was  early  interested  in  the 
movement  and  was  unremitting  in  his  earnest 
attention  to  the  interests  of  the  bill.  He  vis- 
ited Washington  repeatedly,  conferring  with 
senators  and  representatives,  and  taking  coun- 
sel with  his  associates  in  the  enterprise.  No 
one  who  has  not  been  engaged  personally  in 
an  effort  to  press  through  Congress  a  meas- 
ure which  appeals  chiefly  to  a  sense  of  honor, 
and  yet  involves  all  manner  of  private  and 
industrial  interests,  can  appreciate  the  need 
at  such  a  time,  not  only  of  resolution  and  per- 
sistency, but  of  patience,  of  tact,  of  individual 
handling  of  men,  of  removal  of  prejudice  and 
even  of  counteracting  the  indiscreet  zeal  of 


126  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

associates.  Moreover,  there  was  not  always 
entire  agreement  among  the  advocates  of  the 
bill  as  to  the  policy  to  be  pursued  when 
amendments  were  offered,  and  the  whole  pe- 
riod, from  the  presentation  of  the  bill  to  its 
final  passage,  was  one  of  great  anxiety  and 
alternate  disappointment  and  hope.  It  was  a 
hand-to-hand  conflict,  most  of  the  work  being 
done  in  and  about  Congress  in  personal  in- 
terviews. 

Mr.  "W.  W.  Appleton,  who  was  himself  ac- 
tively engaged  in  the  contest,  wrote  to 
Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Company  for  his  firm 
after  Mr.  Houghton's  death :  "  The  writer  has 
the  most  pleasant  recollections  of  many  inter- 
views during  the  long  and  at  times  seemingly 
hopeless  contest  for  international  copyright, 
and  found  Mr.  Houghton  ready  and  eager 
to  aid  the  good  work  in  any  way.  His  judg- 
ment, experience,  and  personal  effort  did  much 
to  bring  about  the  success  attained."  "  Mr. 
Houghton,"  says  Dr.  Edward  Eggleston,  "was 
one  of  the  very  foremost  of  all  that  engaged 
in  that  struggle,  whether  we  consider  his  ac- 
tivity, or  his  prudence,  or  his  influence.  I 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  127 

differed  from  him  strongly  at  the  outset  in 
regard  to  certain  questions  about  the  struc- 
ture of  the  bill,  but  he  was  always  frank,  and 
an  opponent  knew  where  to  find  him."  And 
Senator  Chace,  writing  to  Mr.  Houghton  in 

the  spring  of  1891,  says :  " gave  me 

quite  a  full  account  of  what  transpired  in 
New  York  and  Washington  just  before  the 
final  vote,  and,  after  hearing  his  account,  I 
should  feel  very  remiss  did  I  not  say  to  thee 
that  it  is  clear  to  my  mind  that  the  country  is 
most  largely  indebted  to  thee  for  thy  prompt 
and  vigorous  action. 

..."  I  am  writing  to  thee  in  great  free- 
dom and  in  confidence,  for  thee  is  one  of 
those  whom  I  have  found  all  the  way  through 
to  be,  not  only  clear-headed,  but  faithful  to 
all  interests.  Now  that  the  victory  is  achieved, 
I  feel  like  giving  thee  full  credit  for  thy 
great  service  to  the  cause." 

Mr.  Houghton  was,  in  truth,  the  main  de- 
pendence of  the  advocates  of  the  bill,  as  re- 
gards New  England  especially.  His  cordial 
relation  with  the  printing  craft  was  of  great 
service.  At  first  he  was  opposed  to  what  is 


128  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

known  as  the  manufacturing  clause,  or  at 
least  was  not  strongly  in  favor  of  it.  He 
soon  saw,  however,  that  the  clause  would 
give  to  the  bill  the  strong  support  of  the 
printers,  and,  with  his  own  sincere  belief  in 
the  principle  of  protection,  he  came  to  recog- 
nize the  desirability  of  the  clause.  Later, 
when  he  had  the  opportunity  to  observe  the 
reception  of  the  act  in  England,  he  wrote 
home  :  "  I  am  inclined  to  think,  in  the  light 
of  subsequent  events,  that  it  was  a  wise  thing 
to  do;  and  I  have  not  hesitated  to  say  to 
those  interested  here  that,  if  they  undertake 
to  get  that  part  of  the  law  repealed,  it  will 
jeopardize  the  bill."  He  was  present  at  the 
Authors'  Dinner  in  London,  held  after  the 
passage  of  the  act,  and,  after  commenting  on 
the  speeches  there  made,  he  adds  :  "  I  think 
we  have  made  a  great  step  in  advance,  and 
American  authors  are  to  reap  largely  the  ben- 
efit of  it ;  and  this  is  as  it  ought  to  be.  The 
era  of  cheap  books  should  come  in  now,  and 
American  readers  as  much  as  authors  should 
reap  the  benefit." 

He  had  a  very  just  appreciation  of  Senator 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  129 

Chace's  labors  in  behalf  of  the  act,  and  was 
indignant  at  the  apparent  lack  of  recognition 
of  his  services  after  the  passage  of  the  bill. 
"  When  I  consider,"  he  wrote,  "  how  much 
he  has  done ;  that,  having  nothing,  not  even 
the  remotest  connection  with  the  publishing 
business  or  authorship,  he  gave  so  much  time 
and  so  much  intelligent  effort  without  any 
possible  motive  of  personal  advantage  to  him- 
self or  political  advancement,  the  fact  that  he 
is  so  thoroughly  ignored  has  been,  I  confess, 
a  source  of  great  annoyance  to  me."  When, 
therefore,  an  address  to  Mr.  Chace,  signed  by 
publishers  and  authors,  was  proposed,  he  took 
the  most  active  interest  in  forwarding  the 
plan,  —  giving,  indeed,  great  personal  atten- 
tion to  securing  signatures  on  the  eve  of  his 
journey  to  Europe.  He  wrote  as  follows  to 
Dr.  Eggleston,  June  20,  1891  :  — 

DEAR  DR.  EGGLESTON,  — We  shall  transmit 
to  Mr.  Harper  in  a  day  or  two  the  paper 
which  you  indited,  with  a  good  number  of 
signatures,  and  signatures  of  a  character  with 
which,  I  think,  you  will  be  pleased.  We  are 


130  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

only  waiting  now  for  Mr.  Whittier's,  which 
we  hope  to  get  by  Monday ;  and  we  trust  the 
paper  will  go  over  early  in  the  week.  I  want 
to  repeat  what  Mr.  Harper  has  suggested,  — 
that  it  is  important  that  you  should  head  the 
letter ;  and  I  have  already  taken  the  liberty 
to  say  to  Senator  Chace  that  you  have  written 
it,  and  that  we  are  going  to  insist  that  you 
shall  sign  it  first.  Since  the  death  of  my  wife 
I  have  taken  scarcely  any  interest  in  any- 
thing, but  there  has  been  no  duty  so  grateful 
to  me  as  to  help  in  securing  these  names. 
The  cordiality  which  has  been  expressed  and 
the  interest  which  has  been  manifested  have 
been  extremely  gratifying,  and  I  trust  it  will 
be  gratifying  to  Mr.  Chace  himself.  I  have 
felt  ever  since  the  passage  of  the  act,  and 
before,  that  Mr.  Chace's  interest  and  labor 
in  this  cause  have  been  practically  ignored. 
This  will  enable  us  to  remove  any  such  im- 
pression, I  trust,  from  Mr.  Chace's  mind. 

I  have  said  that  he  had  not  long  been  a 
resident  of  Cambridge  before  he  was  asked  to 
serve  on  the  school  committee,  and  afterward 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  131 

took  his  place  in  the  common  council  and 
the  board  of  aldermen.  He  had  in  these 
offices  shown  such  qualities,  and  his  expand- 
ing business  had  made  him  so  much  of  a 
figure  in  the  city,  that  he  was  elected  to  the 
office  of  mayor  for  the  year  1872.  He  en- 
tered upon  his  duties  with  resolution,  and  with 
a  determination  to  give  the  city  a  prudent 
and  economical  administration ;  but  he  also 
took  a  large  view  of  municipal  life.  It  was 
a  source  of  sincere  pride  with  him  that,  under 
the  impetus  which  he  gave,  the  beautiful 
Fresh  Pond  was  made  a  fine  water-park,  and 
the  survey  which  he  gave  of  the  city's  needs 
in  his  inaugural  address  was  both  broad  and 
sagacious. 

Mr.  Houghton  was  not  reflected  to  the 
office,  although  he  was  a  candidate  for  a  sec- 
ond term.  His  successful  opponent  was  one 
of  the  city  officers,  whose  discharge  for  insub- 
ordination he  had  forced.  It  would  be  idle 
to  rehearse  a  quarrel  which  most  people  have 
forgotten ;  but  it  is  not  out  of  place  to  say 
that  the  very  conscientiousness  and  energy 
which  Mr.  Houghton  displayed  stood  in  the 


132  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

way  of  his  popularity  as  a  chief  magistrate. 
He  abhorred  slackness  and  indifference,  and 
anything  approaching  a  shirk,  and,  with  his 
self-contained  independence  and  sense  of  au- 
thority, he  pushed  through  such  obstacles  as 
met  him  by  the  exercise  of  an  uncompromis- 
ing will.  Such  men  do  not  make  themselves 
favorites  in  government,  but  the  bracing  effect 
of  this  strong  leadership  was  not  soon  lost, 
and  the  patient  care  with  which  the  mayor 
examined  every  least  concern  which  came  be- 
fore him  was  gratefully  recognized  by  those 
who  needed  his  strong  aid. 

Mr.  Houghton  did  not  confine  himself  to 
official  service  in  the  city.  He  was  on  more 
than  one  commission,  indeed,  and  he  inter- 
ested himself  repeatedly  in  movements  which 
looked  to  the  betterment  of  Cambridge.  His 
business  reputation  brought  him  also  into 
positions  of  trust,  both  as  an  officer  of  a  bank 
and  in  the  care  of  private  estates.  It  also 
made  him  of  service  to  the  religious  denomi- 
nation to  which  he  belonged.  President  War- 
ren, of  Boston  University,  has  spoken  of  the 
long  connection  which  Mr.  Houghton  had 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  133 

with  that  institution,  and  with  the  Theologi- 
cal Seminary  which  antedated  it.  "  It  was  in 
1866,"  he  says,  "that  our  Theological  Sem- 
inary was  removed  from  New  Hampshire  to 
Boston.  Mr.  Houghton  favored  its  establish- 
ment in  Cambridge.  I  well  remember  his 
taking  me  in  his  carriage  to  inspect  certain 
building  lots  and  tracts  of  land  then  for  sale 
in  this  city,  on  one  or  another  of  which  he 
recommended  our  trustees  to  build.  Some 
of  these  I  often  pass,  and  never,  I  think,  with- 
out remembering  our  visit  in  1866.  Our 
trustees,  however,  found  all  these  suggested 
lots  too  small  for  their  generous  plans,  and 
hence  purchased  thirty  odd  acres  in  Brook- 
line.  Later  their  plans  were  further  modified 
by  the  founding  of  Boston  University,  and 
the  adoption  of  the  Theological  School  as 
one  of  a  group  of  metropolitan  professional 
schools  clustering  about  a  vigorous  academic 
department.  Mr.  Houghton  was  not  dis- 
pleased that  his  original  suggestion  had  not 
been  acted  upon,  and  when,  in  1872,  the  pro- 
jected School  of  Law  required  for  its  safe 
launching  a  ' guaranty  fund'  of  $5000,  he 


134  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

was  one  of  the  five  men  who  pledged  and 
ultimately  gave  $1000  apiece  for  this  pur- 
pose. He  was  one  of  the  earliest  Trustees  of 
the  University,  and  for  quarter  of  a  century 
was  faithful  in  his  attendance  upon  its  al- 
most monthly  meetings.  As  Chairman  of  the 
Standing  Committee  on  the  School  of  Law, 
he  rendered  a  highly  valued  service.  His 
personal  knowledge  of  the  leading  lawyers  of 
Boston  and  vicinity  was  uncommonly  exten- 
sive and  accurate.  His  judgment,  moreover, 
was  so  sound  and  unbiased  that  I  never  had 
occasion  to  regret  an  appointment  to  that 
Faculty  when  he  had  previously  recommended 
it.  His  intimate  relation  to  the  Dean  of  the 
School,  Judge  Bennett,  as  an  early  and  life- 
long friend,  was  also  in  many  ways  beneficial. 
To  find  for  a  successor  in  the  chairmanship 
of  this  committee  a  man  of  equal  qualifica- 
tions will  be  a  problem  of  no  small  difficulty." 
One  further  form  of  Mr.  Houghton's  pub- 
lic spirit  may  be  mentioned  in  the  active  part 
which  he  took  in  the  organization  and  practi- 
cal working  of  the  Indian  Eights  Association. 
His  friendly  relation  with  Senator  Dawes 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  135 

made  him  especially  ready  to  cooperate  with 
him,  and  he  looked  forward  in  the  latter  part 
of  his  lif e  with  genuine  pleasure  to  the  yearly 
conferences  at  Lake  Mohonk.  But  the  most 
moving  cause  of  his  interest  was  the  ardor  of 
Mrs.  Houghton. 


IX 

MRS.  HOUGHTON  answered  well  the  fine  old 
name  of  helpmeet ;  for  not  only  did  she  enter 
heartily  into  her  husband's  life  in  all  their 
common  domestic  interests,  she  fortified  it  by 
her  own  independent  but  not  foreign  enter- 
prises. As  she  became  more  released  from 
close  supervision  of  her  household  in  the  ma- 
turing of  her  children,  she  entered  with  the 
enthusiasm  and  irrepressible  cheerfulness  of 
her  nature  into  philanthropic  and  semi-public 
concerns.  She  was  an  ardent  friend  of  the 
movement  for  bettering  the  condition  of  the 
Indian,  and  she  was  a  very  strenuous  opponent 
of  the  suffrage  for  women.  Mr.  Houghton,  as 
I  have  said,  entered  with  her  into  the  former 
work,  and  he  was  in  sympathy  with  her  prin- 
ciples of  anti-woman-suffrage;  but  a  large 
part  of  the  pleasure  he  took  was  in  the  inti- 
mate companionship  with  one  so  unselfish,  so 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  137 

full  of  life  and  devotion,  who  filled  to  the  full 
his  own  conception  of  a  generous  activity. 

When  Mrs.  Houghton  died,  on  the  13th  of 
April,  1891,  there  were  those  who  with  affec- 
tionate chiding  were  wont  to  say  that,  if  she 
had  spared  herself  more,  she  might  not  have 
been  so  summarily  and  swiftly  carried  away 
by  the  attack  of  pneumonia  which  seized  her ; 
but  Mr.  Houghton,  while  conceding  the  pos- 
sibility of  this,  took  the  nobler  view.  "  She 
went  in  all  over,"  he  said,  "  in  the  matters 
she  was  interested  in.  She  did  not  spare  her- 
self. Perhaps  if  she  had  taken  care  of  herself 
she  would  have  lived  longer,  but  her  life  was 
full ;  she  was  happy  in  her  many  occupations. 
It  is  better  so."  He  was  led  to  speak  of  the 
mistaken  kindness  which  succeeded  in  empty- 
ing the  old  of  occupation  and  responsibility, 
and  recounted  the  experience  of  his  own  fa- 
ther, who  had  wasted  away,  he  believed,  from 
sheer  inanity,  because  those  about  him  were 
affectionately  anxious  to  shield  him  from  care 
and  labor. 

He  had  himself,  before  his  wife's  death, 
begun  to  be  shaken  a  little  in  his  firm  health ; 


138  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

but,  though  he  professed  a  desire  to  get  some 
relief  from  a  confinement  to  business,  habit 
was  strong  with  him,  and,  despite  the  share 
of  work  he  surrendered  to  his  associates,  he 
found  it  hard  to  relinquish  his  hold  upon  the 
lever.  But  his  wife's  death  made  a  profound 
impression  upon  him.  The  loyalty  he  always 
felt  for  his  friends  was  a  sacred  feeling  as 
regarded  his  wife,  and  the  nearly  forty  years' 
companionship  had  made  her  indeed  bone  of 
his  bone  and  flesh  of  his  flesh,  so  that,  when 
she  passed  out  of  his  life,  strong  as  he  was, 
he  felt  almost  a  bewilderment.  The  physical 
weariness,  of  which  he  had  been  little  aware 
in  the  strength  of  his  will,  now  became  known 
even  to  him.  He  set  out  with  his  daughters 
on  a  nine  months'  journey  abroad,  and  wrote 
back  from  England  that  he  had  not  been 
aware  how  worn  out  he  was  until  he  got  away 
from  home. 

The  party  traveled  leisurely,  spending  much 
of  their  time  on  the  yacht  Victoria,  which 
took  them  not  only  into  northern  waters,  so 
that  they  visited  Norway  and  Sweden  and 
Russia,  but  later  brought  them  from  the  Medi- 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  139 

terranean  to  the  West  Indies  on  their  way 
home.  Part  of  the  winter  of  1892  was  spent 
in  Egypt.  Mr.  Houghton  by  no  means  relin- 
quished his  concern  for  the  business  in  his 
absence.  He  kept  up  a  busy  correspondence 
with  the  house,  and  gave  a  great  deal  of  at- 
tention to  projects  which  called  for  coopera- 
tion with  foreign  houses. 

Upon  his  return  to  America  in  April,  1892, 
Mr.  Houghton  resumed  his  customary  place 
in  the  business,  and,  though  he  succeeded 
in  absenting  himself  a  little  more  than  for- 
merly in  the  summer  time,  there  was  no  very 
appreciable  diminution  of  activity  until  the 
winter  of  1894-95.  He  spent  his  summer, 
as  for  several  years  before,  at  Little  Boar's 
Head,  New  Hampshire,  and  made  occasional 
excursions  to  Vermont,  especially  when  he 
was  constrained  by  the  good-natured  com- 
pulsion of  his  friend,  Mr.  Norman  Williams,  of 
Chicago,  himself  an  ardent  Vermonter  and  a 
summer  neighbor  of  Mr.  Houghton.  A  Ver- 
mont Association  had  been  organized  in  Bos- 
ton in  1886,  and  Mr.  Houghton  was  president 


140  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

until  1894,  when  he  insisted  on  retiring.  The 
chief  function  of  the  president  was  to  preside 
at  the  annual  dinner  of  the  Association,  and 
Mr.  Houghton  carried  his  thoroughness  into 
his  social  as  into  his  business  duties,  and 
strongly  attached  to  him  those  who  had  the 
execution  of  the  plans  of  the  Association. 
One  of  these,  Captain  S.  E.  Howard,  secretary 
of  the  Association,  wrote  to  Mr.  Houghton 
to  congratulate  him  on  reaching  his  seven- 
tieth birthday,  and  received  this  reply  :  — 

BOSTON,  May  18, 1893. 

DEAR  CAPTAIN  HOWARD,  —  I  have  some- 
times thought  that  if  I  were  a  military  man 
and  your  superior  officer,  with  power  of  life 
and  death  in  my  hands,  I  should  order  you 
to  be  shot.  I  feel  a  good  deal  like  the  boy 
I  used  to  know  in  Vermont,  who  said  he 
could  bear  anything  except  being  "twitted 
of  facts;"  and  to  find  one's  self  being  congrat- 
ulated upon  being  threescore  and  ten  leads  a 
man  to  be  a  little  rebellious.  However,  I  will 
forgive  you  for  reminding  me  of  it,  and  also 
will  commute  the  old  grudge  which  I  had 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  141 

against  you  for  allowing  me  to  be  contin- 
ued as  President  of  the  Vermont  Association. 
There  is  one  advantage  of  being  an  "  old 
fellow/7  and  that  is  that  one's  friends  can 
say  how  much  they  think  of  him  while  he  is 
alive  and  kicking.  One  of  the  pleasantest 
things  connected  with  my  membership  in  the 
Vermont  Association  has  been  the  pleasant 
friends  I  have  made,  and  among  them  all 
there  are  none  that  I  esteem  more  highly 
than  you  and  our  mutual  friend.  Colonel  Car- 
penter, my  co-workers.  Wishing  that  you 
may  live  to  be  fourscore  and  ten  or  more, 
I  am 

Yours  very  truly, 

H.  0.  HOUGHTON. 

A  complimentary  dinner  was  given  Mr. 
Houghton  by  the  Association  after  he  retired 
from  the  presidency,  but  at  his  request  there 
were  no  reporters  present,  and  what  was  said 
on  that  occasion  was  not  preserved. 

This  recurrence  to  early  memories  was  ac- 
companied by  a  lively  interest  in  family  his- 
tory, and  in  one  or  two  letters  written  to  a 


142  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

friend  at  this  time,  Mr.  Houghton  gives  a 
glimpse  of  the  manner  in  which  he  was  using 
some  of  his  enforced  leisure.  He  was  partic- 
ularly interested  in  the  alliance  which  he  was 
shown  to  have  with  early  printers. 

CAMBRIDGE,  December  28,  1893. 

...  I  am  much  pleased  that  you  are  inter- 
ested in  my  genealogical  researches.  Many 
years  ago,  before  my  marriage,  I  fell  in  with  a 
man  who  had  been  to  England  to  make  special 
researches  about  the  Houghton  family;  and 
from  him  I  obtained  the  family  tree,  the  coat- 
of-arms,  seal,  etc.,  and,  in  looking  over  some 
old  papers  recently,  I  discovered  a  copy  of  a 
letter  from  John  Burke,  the  author  of  Burke's 
Peerage,  addressed  to  Sir  Henry  Bold  Hough- 
ton,  an  English  baronet,  informing  him  that 
his  family  were  descended  from  the  Planta- 
genet  kings.  The  motto,  I  am  sorry  to  say, 
was  a  fighting  one,  "  Malgre  le  Tort,"  and 
I  changed  it  many  years  ago,  retaining  the 
crest.  At  this  Christmas,  Miss  Leach,  of  Phil- 
adelphia, —  who  with  her  father  has  been 
helping  me  to  formulate  my  ancestors,  so  that 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  143 

I  could  join  the  Sons  of  the  Revolution,  as 
well  as  the  Society  of  the  Old  Colony  Wars, 
—  has  sent  to  me  our  family  coat-of-arms, 
which  she  has  carefully  and  I  believe  accu- 
rately marked  out  and  painted  and  had 
framed.  For  the  Old  Colony  Wars  I  have 
six  or  eight  ancestors  from  whom  I  can 
claim  the  right.  And  for  the  Sons  of  the 
Revolution  my  son  has  one  claim  more  than 
I,  as  his  great-grandfather  on  his  mother's 
side  was  chaplain  in  the  Revolution. 

January  11, 1894. 

...  Some  years  ago  I  was  asked  to  speak 
about  printing  at  a  dinner  of  the  Harvard 
Club  in  New  York,  and  then  and  since  I  took 
a  great  deal  of  pains  to  investigate  the  subject. 
The  principal  authority  is  Thomas's  History  of 
Printing,  but  the  information  was  meagre  and 
confused ;  but  I  got  no  hint  from  any  source 
of  my  relationship  to  the  president  [i.  e.  Pres- 
ident Dunster  of  Harvard].  This  was  discov- 
ered by  my  friend,  Mr.  Leach,  of  Philadelphia, 
who  has  made  genealogy  a  study  for  many 
years.  The  result  of  my  investigations  was, 


144  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

that  President  Dunster  was  the  first  printer, 
and  not  Stephen  Daye.  A  clergyman  by  the 
name  of  Glover,  for  the  purpose  of  converting 
the  Indians,  set  sail  from  England  in  1678 
with  his  family,  Stephen  Daye  (supposed  to 
have  been  a  blacksmith),  and  the  printing  ma- 
terials. Mr.  Glover  died  on  the  passage.  The 
press  was  set  up  in  President  Dunster' s  house. 
He  subsequently  married  the  widow  of  Mr. 
Glover,  and  years  afterwards  his  children  sued 
Mr.  Dunster  for  an  accounting,  and  Major 
Willard  was  called  in  to  settle  the  matter  be- 
tween the  children  and  the  president.  Ste- 
phen Daye  was  discharged  about  the  time  of 
Mrs.  Glover's  marriage,  and  a  Samuel  Green, 
a  native  of  the  town,  took  the  place  of  Daye, 
and  kept  it  for  fifty  years,  while  Daye  turned 
land  speculator.  Meantime  President  Dun- 
ster had  a  law  passed  by  the  colonial  legisla- 
ture that  all  printing  required  in  the  colonies 
should  be  done  in  Cambridge.  He  also  had 
a  censorship  of  the  press  appointed,  and  he 
was  one  of  the  censors.  Besides,  when  a  com- 
peting press  was  sent  over,  Dunster  bought 
it.  So  I  infer  that  he  was  the  real  printer, 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  145 

and  rather  an  enterprising  man  besides.  Now 
Major  Willard,  having  lost  his  English  wife, 
married  Elizabeth  Dunster,  a  sister  of  Presi- 
dent Dunster,  and  she  dying  he  married  Mary 
Dunster,  supposed  to  have  been  a  younger  sis- 
ter or  niece.  Mary  Willard,  a  descendant  of 
this  marriage,  married  Ensign  Jacob  Hough- 
ton,  my  great-grandfather.  From  this  union 
of  Willards  and  Dunsters  came  two  presidents 
of  Harvard  College,  and  some  other  fairly 
respectable  descendants.  .  .  . 

Although  Mr.  Houghton  kept  his  place  at 
the  head  of  the  house  and  rarely  missed  a  day 
at  Park  Street,  it  was  clear  that  he  was  con- 
sciously relaxing  the  tension  of  his  hold  on 
business  details.  There  was  the  same  quick- 
ness of  perception  when  projects  were  dis- 
cussed, the  same  faculty  for  going  straight 
to  the  centre,  but  there  was  less  disposition  to 
watch  closely  the  separate  movements  of  the 
great  organism  he  had  so  long  been  build- 
ing up.  With  this  relaxation  there  seemed 
almost  a  release  of  that  part  of  his  nature 
which  in  the  strenuous  activity  of  his  lif e  had 


146  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

been  held  in  restraint.  With  the  sunshine 
of  prosperity  came  a  mellowness  in  which  the 
warmth  of  his  disposition  showed  itself  in 
generous  converse  with  his  friends.  As  he 
sat  in  his  office,  he  welcomed  those  who  came 
on  business  as  friendly  visitors.  It  had  been 
one  of  his  marked  characteristics  that  he 
never  hurried  a  caller,  and  would  sit  leisurely 
chatting  with  him  when  his  clerks  outside 
were  fuming  over  the  interruption  of  what 
they  thought  important  business ;  now  he  let 
his  sociability  have  free  play,  and  especially 
delighted  when  some  old  associate,  under  no 
greater  pressure,  as  Dr.  Holmes  for  example, 
who  was  a  frequent  visitor,  could  draw  his 
chair  beside  him  for  a  familiar  chat.  Always 
peculiarly  open  to  the  frank  friendship  of  the 
young,  as  he  grew  older  he  turned  instinct- 
ively to  them  for  companionship.  His  daugh- 
ters' friends  found  in  his  mingled  courtesy 
and  playfulness  a  charm  which  won  their  con- 
fidence and  respect.  A  touch  of  his  manner 
may  be  seen  in  a  letter  which  he  wrote  to 
a  neighbor  shortly  before  his  return  from  his 
last  journey  to  Europe  :  — 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  147 


TO   E.    W.    O. 

CAIRO,  EGYPT,  May  11, 1892. 
MY  DEAR  EDITH,  —  Your  kind  note  and 
the  calendar  enclosed  were  duly  received  at 
Christmas,  and  very  gratefully  so.  The  little 
sweet  face  on  the  Christmas  card  looked  as 
if  it  was  all  ready  to  be  kissed,  as  you  were 
in  days  long  agone.  I  do  not  know  how  to 
sufficiently  compensate  you  for  your  charm- 
ing remembrance  unless  I  send  you  a  camel. 
Would  you  like  a  young  one  or  an  old  one  ? 
They  both  look  very  picturesque.  I  saw  Al- 
berta mount  one  for  the  first  time  on  Satur- 
day. He  groaned  and  made  a  great  fuss,  but 
after  a  big  effort  he  raised  himself  on  his  fore- 
legs, and  she  swayed  back  and  forth  in  true 
Oriental  style.  After  she  had  succeeded, 
Elizabeth  and  Justine  mounted  their  respec- 
tive camels,  and  I  a  donkey !  Their  camels 
got  up  easier,  but  I  had  hard  work  to  mount 
the  donkey ;  the  stirrups  were  too  short  and 
the  saddle  too  high.  You  will  see  us  all 
doubtless,  in  time,  reproduced  in  photograph 
on  our  various  mounts. 


148  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

Please  thank  Miss  B for  her  kind  re- 
membrance also.  I  do  not  quite  know  what 
to  bring  her  in  return.  I  had  thought  of  the 
Sphinx,  but  that  would  not  do,  as  she  is  a 
woman  and  would  not  be  appreciated;  besides, 
she  has  got  a  battered  nose,  which  indicates 
she  may  have  been  on  a  drunken  spree  in  her 
early  life.  How  would  a  young  buffalo  do  ? 
They  are  frisky  and  seem  sociable,  and  have 
a  way  of  depressing  their  horns  on  their  necks 
so  that  they  look  very  docile.  .  .  . 

We  have  taken  passage  to-morrow  on  Ka- 
meses  the  Great  for  the  first  cataract  on  the 
Nile.  After  that  we  expect  to  set  our  faces 
homeward.  We  trust  a  good  Providence 
will  give  us  favoring  winds  and  speed  us  on 
our  way,  so  that  we  may  soon  be  able  to 
greet  all  our  dear  friends.  Please  give  my 

kindest  regards  to  Miss  B and  C , 

if  he  is  not  so  inveterate  a  mugwump  as  not 
to  care  for  them,  and  with  love  for  yourself 
from  your  still 

Young  friend, 

H.  0.  HOUGHTON. 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  149 

To  the  large  circle  of  his  nieces  and  neph- 
ews and  their  children,  Mr.  Houghton  was 
increasingly  bound  by  the  interchange  of 
friendly  intercourse  and  by  the  frequent  acts 
of  kindness  which  he  was  able  to  show,  and 
it  is  not  strange  that  he  was  peculiarly  drawn 
to  his  one  living  grandchild.  He  welcomed 
her  advent  with  a  quiet,  happy  pleasure  which 
was  good  to  see,  and  it  was  one  of  his  great 
resources,  as  his  life  contracted  in  other  ways, 
to  visit  her  and  watch  her  life  expanding. 
When  he  was  absent  from  her,  he  wanted 
news  of  her,  and  something  of  his  eagerness 
to  share  life  with  her  may  be  seen  in  this 
letter,  written  when  she  was  an  infant  only, 
and  he  was  back  in  the  neighborhood  of  his 
own  childhood :  — 

MONTPEIIER,  VT.,  December  24, 1894. 

MY  DEAR  GRANDDAUGHTER  EOSAMOND, — 
I  received  your  sweet  letter  to-day,  the  first 
I  ever  received  from  a  granddaughter,  and  I 
suppose  the  first  you  ever  wrote.  I  must  say 
that  the  penmanship,  as  well  as  the  expres- 
sion of  your  ideas,  did  you  great  credit.  If 


150  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

you  keep  on  improving  until  you  are  thirty 
you  are  likely  to  be  the  most  famous  female 
member  of  the  Houghton  family.  Perhaps 
you  may  be  allowed  to  vote  on  account  of 
your  great  learning.  To  prevent  you  from 
being  a  "  blue  stocking/'  I  think  I  was  none 
too  early  in  suggesting  that  we  would  have 
"  high  jinks  "  together  as  soon  as  you  get  big 
enough.  I  think  this  is  important,  as  I  do 
not  want  you  to  be  too  literary,  nor  do  I  think 
your  grandmother,  if  she  were  living,  would 
like  to  have  you  vote,  but  would  much  pre- 
fer you  should  be  a  sweet,  healthy,  rollicking 
little  girl  than  a  prudish,  pale  pedant,  so 
please  kick  and  jump  just  as  hard  as  you  can, 
so  you  can  be  in  good  training  for  us  to  have 
a  lot  of  frolics  together.  Perhaps  you  will 
come  up  to  Vermont  with  me  some  time,  where 
there  is  in  winter  usually  plenty  of  ice  and 
snow.  There  is  but  little  snow  here  to-day, 
but  Aunt  Alberta  and  Cousin  James  have  just 
gone  out  to  ride  in  a  wagon,  although  the 
thermometer  this  morning  was  about  down  to 
zero.  I  was  sorry  not  to  see  you  before  we 
came  away,  because  you  were  asleep,  but  when 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTOET  151 

you  get  older  we  will  try  and  regulate  these 
matters  to  suit  ourselves.  With  love  to  your 
mamma  and  papa,  and  with  ever  so  much  to 
your  dear  self,  I  am 

Your  affectionate 

GRANDPA. 

P.  S.  Your  photograph  in  your  papa's 
arms  is  right  before  me,  in  which  you  appear 
to  excellent  advantage. 

In  the  autumn  of  1894  Mr.  Houghton  was 
affected  by  a  difficulty  of  breathing,  which 
greatly  impeded  the  freedom  of  his  move- 
ments, and  kept  him  from  time  to  time  housed 
at  home ;  so  that,  when  the  winter  came,  it 
was  thought  wise  for  him  to  go  South,  in 
hopes  that  a  less  stringent  climate  would  give 
him  relief.  His  eldest  daughter  went  with 
him,  and  his  family  physician,  also,  as  far  as 
Asheville.  He  was  restless  and  moved  farther 
South,  trying  one  place  after  another,  only  to 
return  in  the  spring  with  the  kind  of  new 
hope  and  courage  which  come  to  one  who 
has  done  with  travels  for  health,  and  is  once 
more  in  his  own  home.  A  letter  written  when 


152      HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

he  was  making   his  way  northward  gives  a 
hint  of  his  winter :  — 


TO    CAPTAIN    S.    B.    HOWARD. 

LAKEWOOD,  NEW  JERSEY,  April  2, 1895. 

MY  DEAR  CAPTAIN  HOWARD,  —  There  is 
something  very  good  about  you ;  whether  it 
is  innate,  or  comes  from  your  association  with 
Vermonters,  I  cannot  say.  It  seems  to  be  there 
just  the  same,  as  evidenced  by  your  thinking 
of  a  poor  fellow  suffering  from  the  grippe  and 
wandering  about  seeking  for  sleep  and  rest. 
We  first  went  to  Asheville,  North  Carolina, 
where  for  a  few  days  everything  seemed  to 
go  well,  when  there  came  a  succession  of 
rainy  and  cold  days,  when  breathing  was  dif- 
ficult, and  sleep  seemed  impossible  except  by 
stealth.  The  local  doctor  told  me  I  must 
get  out,  and,  as  it  seemed  against  his  inter- 
est to  have  me  do  so,  I  did  it.  He  sent  me 
to  Columbia,  South  Carolina,  where  I  did  im- 
prove in  the  sleeping  and  the  weather  was 
milder,  but  the  "fodder"  was  dreadful, — the 
old  Virginia  style.  I  stood  it  as  long  as  I  could, 
and  then  we  struck  out  for  this  place.  Here 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  153 

we  have  comfortable  quarters,  high  prices, 
palatable  food,  and  a  tendency  to  sleep  added. 
I  purpose  to  try  this  awhile,  unless  something 
drives  me  away  from  here.  At  any  rate,  I 
trust  to  be  home  about  the  middle  of  April. 

Not  long  after  Mr.  Houghton  returned  to 
Cambridge,  in  the  spring  of  1895,  there  was 
a  festival  held  by  the  Eiverside  Press,  on 
the  occasion  of  Mr.  Mifflin's  fiftieth  birth- 
day. The  celebration  was  happily  conceived 
and  carried  out  by  a  committee  chosen  by 
the  large  body  of  some  six  hundred  men  and 
women  who  now  made  up  the  establishment. 
Mr.  Mifflin  himself  knew  only  so  much  of  the 
affair  beforehand  as  it  was  necessary  to  con- 
fide to  him.  Mr.  Houghton  was  apprised  of 
the  event  and  took  a  deep  interest  in  it,  but 
necessarily  could  have  nothing  to  do  with 
the  management.  When  the  day  came,  his 
family,  ever  watchful  of  him  in  his  declining 
strength,  debated  whether  he  would  be  able 
to  attend  the  festival,  which  was  to  be  held  in 
the  evening.  He  listened  without  much  com- 
ment, but  in  the  course  of  the  discussion  he 


154  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

quietly  slipped  out  and  went  down  to  the 
Press,  where  he  held  a  consultation  with  some 
of  the  committee;  he  had  resolved  that  the 
affair  should  be  more  significant  than  appeared 
on  its  face. 

It  was  agreed  in  his  home  that  he  might 
safely  venture  to  the  hall  for  a  part  of  the 
exercises,  and  his  carriage  could  wait  to  bring 
him  away  if  at  any  time  his  strength  or  his 
interest  flagged.  Several  times  during  the 
earlier  part  of  the  evening,  when  speeches  and 
song  and  other  entertainment  were  going  on, 
one  of  his  daughters  whispered  to  him  a  sug- 
gestion that  he  might  easily  escape,  but  he 
smiled  and  thought  he  would  stay  through. 
In  fact,  he  had  his  own  plans,  which  he  had 
no  intention  of  subjecting  to  debate.  A  sup- 
per was  to  follow,  in  the  lower  hall,  and  Mr. 
Houghton  quietly  took  his  place  at  the  head 
of  the  procession.  His  daughters,  surprised 
at  his  endurance  of  an  excitement  to  which 
he  had  not  seemed  equal  for  several  months, 
were  now  overtaken  with  dismay  and  appre- 
hension when  he  was  called  upon  for  a  speech. 
They  did  not  know  then  that  he  had  specially 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  155 

asked  the  committee  to  call  upon  him;  they 
feared  only  that  his  weakness  would  distress 
him  and  the  audience  if  he  attempted,  with 
his  wavering  voice  and  struggling  breath,  to 
make  even  the  simplest  remarks. 

Mr.  Houghton  rose  to  his  feet  with  all  the 
strength  of  his  prime,  and  in  a  voice  which 
was  never  firmer  or  clearer,  with  a  manner 
direct  and  coherent,  he  told  at  length  the 
story  of  Mr.  Mifflin's  association  with  him 
from  the  beginning,  —  giving  him  the  hearty 
praise  of  one  who  had  long  tried  him  and 
had  come,  strong  man  as  he  was,  even  to  lean 
on  him.  Many  of  the  younger  workers  at  the 
Press  had  never  before  seen  Mr.  Houghton ; 
none  of  them  ever  saw  him  in  his  capacity 
of  leader  again.  It  was  an  open,  frank,  and 
loyal  transfer  of  his  mantle  to  the  younger 
shoulders,  —  a  plea  that  his  successor  might 
have  the  respect  and  support  and  fidelity  of 
the  men  which  had  heretofore  been  given  to 
himself.  It  was  a  fitting  climax  to  a  great 
career. 

When  the  summer    of    1895    came,   Mr. 


156  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

Houghton  was  advised  not  to  expose  himself 
to  the  climate  of  the  seacoast,  and  he  availed 
himself  of  the  courtesy  of  Mr.  Mifflin,  who 
placed  at  his  partner's  disposal  his  country- 
seat  at  North  Andover.  There,  in  a  quiet 
rural  district,  Mr.  Houghton  could  have  not 
only  the  seclusion  of  his  own  home,  but  the 
pleasure  of  exploring  the  beautiful  country 
about  the  place.  He  took  daily  drives  when 
he  was  at  home,  but,  with  the  unconquerable 
energy  of  his  nature,  he  persisted  in  frequent 
journeys  to  the  office  in  Boston.  There  was 
something  very  pathetic,  something  also  very 
noble,  in  the  resolution  with  which  he  clung 
to  his  work.  He  had  never  known  when 
he  was  beaten ;  he  did  not  know  it  now,  but 
kept  up  the  attack  week  after  week.  His 
daughters  shielded  him  in  every  possible  way; 
his  friends  visited  him ;  and  the  humor  which 
had  so  often  turned  the  warm  side  of  life 
toward  him  did  not  fail  him  now. 

There  was,  now  and  then,  an  acute  form 
taken  by  his  disease  which  alarmed  not  only 
those  about  him,  but  Mr.  Houghton  himself ; 
and,  though  he  was  not  much  given  to  pre- 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  157 

sages,  it  was  clear  that  he  saw  his  end  draw- 
ing near.  Without  referring  to  this  directly, 
he  made  it  somewhat  evident  by  the  seri- 
ousness with  which  he  collected  himself  in 
occasional  talks  over  important  concerns.  I 
remember  one  such,  which  made  a  strong 
impression  upon  me.  It  was  the  last  day  of 
July,  when  he  arranged  to  have  me  see  him 
by  himself.  There  was  a  matter  in  which  we 
were  both  greatly  concerned  that  had  come 
to  the  point  of  decision.  He  began,  in  his 
characteristic  manner,  at  a  long  distance  from 
the  matter  in  hand.  His  words  came  with 
difficulty,  his  attitude  showed  discomfort.  He 
rehearsed  many  situations  and  relations  with 
which  we  were  both  familiar,  and  came  nearer 
and  nearer  to  the  heart  of  the  subject.  His 
manner  deepened  in  earnestness,  his  voice  be- 
came stronger,  and  he  spoke  with  emphasis, 
—  with  eloquence,  indeed.  In  this  matter  he 
could  make  no  personal  inquisition,  as  he  had 
been  wont  to  do;  he  must  leave  it  to  the 
decision  of  his  partners.  Yet  the  principles 
which  underlay  the  whole  were  insisted  upon, 
and  he  felt  deeply  the  interest  involved.  He 


158  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

was  not  thinking  of  his  personal  estate :  he  was 
thinking  of  the  institution  he  had  founded ; 
that  republic  must  suffer  no  hurt. 

His  strength  failed  him  steadily,  but  he 
made  an  almost  superhuman  effort  on  Fri- 
day, the  23d  of  August,  to  be  present  at  the 
celebration  of  his  grandchild's  first  birthday 
anniversary  in  Winchester.  It  was  as  if  he 
gathered  his  strength  for  this  final  demon- 
stration of  his  love  and  his  indomitable  will. 
He  returned  the  same  day  to  North  Andover, 
and  on  Sunday,  the  25th,  he  died. 

After  his  death  there  were  public  expres- 
sions of  appreciation  of  his  worth  and  his 
services.  Resolutions  of  respect  were  passed 
by  the  book  trade,  the  bank  in  which  he  was 
director,  the  University  which  he  had  so  long 
served,  humane  societies  to  which  he  had  be- 
longed, and  the  city  of  Cambridge.  A  me- 
morial service  was  held  at  the  Harvard  Street 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  at  which  the 
Riverside  Press  was  represented  by  one  of  its 
oldest  members.  Yet,  when  even  a  strong 
man  has  died,  one  turns  presently  from  these 


HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON  159 

public  expressions,  sincere  as  they  are,  for 
there  begin  to  come  to  light  the  secret  ways 
of  the  man's  goodness.  It  was  in  the  nature 
of  Mr.  Houghton's  care  for  others  that  it  was 
confidential.  But  a  man's  testament  cannot 
be  kept  private,  and  it  was  quickly  known  that 
Mr.  Houghton  had  established  a  generous 
fund  to  be  administered  by  his  daughters 
for  the  worthy  poor  of  Cambridge.  This  act 
was  not  the  tardy  charity  of  him  who  can  no 
longer  use  his  wealth.  He  had  been  doing 
this  kind  of  good  for  years,  sometimes  in 
direct  relations,  sometimes  through  almoners. 
He  aided  students  struggling  for  an  educa- 
tion ;  he  gave  liberally  to  his  poorer  kin ;  and 
there  were  certain  discreet  persons  who  re- 
ceived from  him  regularly  sums  of  money  for 
distribution.  He  was  especially  glad  to  do 
this  through  his  church.  "  I  cannot  better 
put  you  in  possession  of  what  I  have  learned 
of  his  genuinely  benevolent  heart,"  said  his 
pastor,  Rev.  George  Skene,  at  the  memorial 
service,  "than  by  reading  you  a  letter  which  I 
received  from  him  a  short  time  before  he  left 
us.  He  had  from  time  to  time  placed  in  my 


160  HENRY  OSCAR  HOUGHTON 

hands  sums  of  money  to  be  used  in  charity 
as  I  found  occasion.  Appreciating  the  fact 
that  he  was  a  business  man,  and  systematic  in 
his  methods  of  doing  business,  I  was  careful 
to  keep  an  accurate  account  of  all  disburse- 
ments, and  report  to  him  in  detail  the  dispo- 
sition of  his  gifts.  After  my  last  report  I 
received  this  letter  from  him :  — 

"  MY  DEAR  PASTOR,  —  I  have  your  ac- 
count of  your  stewardship,  and  find  it  very 
satisfactory.  I  enclose  herewith  another 
check,  if  it  will  not  trouble  you  too  much, 
to  use  in  the  same  way.  When  this  is  used 
up,  will  you  kindly  let  me  know  and  call  for 
more  ?  Thanking  you  for  your  kind  interest 
in  distributing  my  little  benefaction, 
"  I  am  sincerely  yours, 

"H.  0.  HOUGHTON." 

The  last  connection  which  Mr.  Houghton 
had  with  the  office  where  he  had  so  long 
transacted  the  business  of  his  life  was  to  make 
inquiry  into  the  well-being  of  one  of  his  ben- 
eficiaries. 


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